Stay in the Light
by Scullspeare
Summary: Something is out there in the dark ripping its victims to shreds - and now it has Sam and Dean in its sights... Casefic
1. Chapter 1

**SUMMARY:** _Casefic. There's something out there in the dark, ripping its victims apart – and now it has Sam and Dean in its sights.._

**SPOILERS:** _Set Season 4-ish. A casefic which takes place in-between canon hunts._

**DISCLAIMER:**_ The characters of Supernatural belong to Eric Kripke & Co. I am playing in their sandbox, with their toys, with much gratitude._

**RATING:**_ T for some swearing._

**WORD COUNT:**_ 27K_

**GENRE:**_ Gen/Hurt-Comfort/Adventure_

**A/N:**_ Hello. *Waves sheepishly* It's been a while since I've posted thanks to my muse abandoning me this season. I'm still faithfully watching SPN, though, and my muse has been a bit more co-operative of late. Thanks so much to those of you who PM'd me, gently and politely prodding me for new fic; believe me, it helped a great deal. I should have an epilogue to Blood of the Bayou done shortly *crosses fingers* but, in the mean time, I hope you enjoy this casefic, written for the fanzine Blood Brothers 6, published in Spring 2012, and beta-ed by BB editor TeaJunkie, with much gratitude. Enjoy._

**STAY IN THE LIGHT**

The light flickered but stayed on.

A bead of sweat ran down Sam's temple, etching a path through the black dust and dried blood that coated his skin. He peered into the darkness beyond the reach of the light, searching for any signs of movement. There were none. He strained to listen, but the only sound was the rasp of his own labored breathing, amplified by the mask that covered his face.

Sam glanced up at the light—his last line of defense. It flickered again, then seemed to dim, and his breath hitched. He was seeing things…he had to be. He blinked and refocused on the lantern. The batteries were fresh, could power the light for at least four hours. No way had that much time passed. No way had Dean been gone that long.

But if the light _was_ failing….

Sam quickly scanned the shadows. Dean had hung the lantern from a bent nail in the broken beam above him, its light spilling down in a protective cocoon. But beyond that small pool that surrounded him, the pitch black cloaked anyone's—anything's—approach. For all he knew, they were right there, lingering just beyond the light, watching him… waiting….

But as long as the light was on, waiting was all they could do. Sam closed his eyes until the latest wave of dizziness ebbed. It was when the light went out that—

"_It won't come to that, Sammy. I promise you." _Dean had cupped his hand at the back of Sam's head and looked him straight in the eye, their faces just inches apart._ "Just…keep it together. The light'll protect you, and I'll be back with help as soon as I can."_

Sam had swallowed and nodded, but the confident façade had crumbled the second the bobbing light of Dean's helmet disappeared down the tunnel in front of him.

He was alone — half a mile below the surface and trapped under a pile of rock and debris that had rained down on him when part of the old mine tunnel had collapsed.

Dean had been at the periphery of the cave-in, battered by the falling rocks but able to haul himself clear. Sam lay pinned under dirt, large slabs of stone and broken support beams, only his head and right arm free. Dean had frantically tried to pull the debris off him but the rocks trapping him in place were too big and too heavy for one man to lift, at least without further hurting Sam. Long before Dean gave up, they both knew he'd have to leave Sam alone to get help.

Alone—except for the things they were hunting.

Sam dropped his head back, wincing at the jagged shards of wood and rock that seemed to jab into every part of his body he could still feel. His chest was tight, the heavy weight of the beam pinning him in place making breathing difficult. His legs were hidden beneath the debris, sometimes numb, sometimes hurting like hell.

His gaze drifted to the dust dancing through the lantern's light, a mix of coal and stone particles that tumbled lazily before disappearing into the inky black that surrounded him. Watching the dust made Sam cough, even if the response was psychosomatic. His face was covered with a miner's mask, breathable air delivered through it from the canister Dean had wedged into the rocks at his side. The mask protected him from the dust and from the gas they knew was leaking into the mine.

Sam slowly inhaled three times, as deeply as the pressure on his chest allowed, then licked his lips, grimacing at the feel of cracked skin and the taste of coal that had worked its way behind the mask. He knocked off his helmet, shoved up the mask, then snagged the water bottle Dean had left within reach and took a quick drink.

He was about to wedge the bottle back in place when a blast of wind howled through the tunnel, the same tunnel Dean had disappeared down minutes or hours ago. Sam turned his head away, the bottle of water slipping from his hand and tipping over, the contents spilling down the rocks as he yanked down the mask, coughing against the dust and dirt stirred up by the sudden gust.

As the wind disappeared, the mine filled with the creaks and groans of old timber mixed with the squeak of metal. Sam opened his eyes to see the light swinging wildly around him. His head snapped up; the lantern was rocking precariously, the metal ring it hung from rubbing against its nail perch and squeaking loudly. With each swing, it came that much closer to slipping off the nail and crashing to the ground below.

Sam swallowed. It was them, tired of waiting, trying to destroy the one thing keeping them from their prey.

As he scanned the mine, his instincts proved right. Each time the light swung away from him, momentarily shrouding him in darkness, three pairs of glowing white eyes, pupils just pinpricks of black, stared back at him.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Dean fell against the wall of the tunnel, yanked down the bandanna covering his face, and threw up.

He grimaced at the taste of vomit, spat, and dragged the back of his arm over his mouth. Still leaning against the wall for support, he turned and glanced behind him, using his helmet light to sweep the tunnel and make sure nothing had followed him.

Reassured nothing had, he looked ahead and frowned. Was he even going the right way? The cave-in that had trapped Sam had blocked the tunnel they'd used to gain entry. Their only way out was a surface breach they'd discovered earlier while exploring the mine. To get out, to get help for Sam, he needed to get to that breach.

Dean retched against another wave of nausea, and screwed his eyes shut as he mentally retraced his steps. As they'd explored the mine, they'd marked their way by spraying arrows on the tunnel walls in fluorescent orange paint. Yeah, that was it; he just had to follow the arrows.

He doubled over as his stomach cramped; the effects of the gas poisoning were getting worse. He had no clue how many pockets of methane he'd stumbled through but given his increasing lack of co-ordination, the headache about to split open his skull, and the sudden urge to puke out his guts, there'd been more than one.

Dean snorted weakly when, in a brief moment of clarity, he remembered a basic law of physics: Methane was lighter than air. As he made his way from deep in the mine toward the surface, the gas was following him, like him seeking a way out. The brothers had each worn full breathing gear into the mine, but Sam's mask had been smashed in the cave in, the tubing connecting his tanks to his mask severed. Dean had given his breathing gear to Sam without a second thought. Sam, predictably, had protested but the decision for Dean was a no-brainer.

"_I'm heading for fresh air," _he said matter-of-factly as he fastened the mask over Sam's face._ "Trail's well-marked. A quick sprint and I'll be in the clear. No worries."_

But the gas had affected him far faster than he thought possible, his sprint quickly deteriorating to a walk, the walk to his current stumbling gait. And as his thoughts muddied, he found himself taking more than a few wrong turns.

Pushing himself off the wall with a groan and adjusting his grip on his rifle, Dean stumbled forward. He pulled the radio from his belt, pressed the talk button and held it to his mouth. "Mayday, mayday." He swallowed and grimaced, his mouth pasty and sour, as his helmet lamp picked up an orange arrow on the wall. "Come on, Gus. You said you'd have someone on the other end of this thing 'til we hauled our sorry asses topside. I'm holding you to that."

He punched the tunnel wall in frustration when there no answer. "If anyone's hearing this, there's…there's a cave-in deep in the old mine. I have a man trapped and need assistance. Access from Swancott tunnel 44Z is blocked." He shook his head. "No…no... That's not right. It's Tunnel 44B, as in Bravo. I'm headed about two klicks west from that location. Tunnel collapse there offers access to the surface. I need a rescue team to meet me. Please respond."

Like every other time Dean had called for help, the only answer was static. Like him, the radio had taken a beating in the cave-in, but he kept sending a call for help in the faint hope it was transmitting if not receiving.

Dean's vision swam and his chest tightened, his heart beating way too fast. He reached for the bandanna around his neck and pulled it up over his mouth and nose. The cloth he'd soaked with water before leaving Sam helped his breathing, but it was a stopgap measure at best. Methane robbed the body of oxygen; he'd suffocate if he didn't find a way out of the mine soon.

Dean's legs felt like jelly, his lungs like they were filled with cement. By the time he reached the next bend in the tunnel, he was moving even slower and leaning heavily against the wall, needing its support to stay upright. The sickly sour taste in his mouth fed the ever-present nausea, and his vision kept sliding out of focus. But as he lurched around the curve in the wall, he saw it: a small square of daylight, about two hundred feet ahead, falling into the tunnel from a hole in the ceiling. He blinked twice to convince himself he wasn't seeing things.

He wasn't.

Behind the bandanna mask, Dean smiled.

But the smile faded quickly as he staggered forward, those two hundred feet seeming more like two hundred miles to his shaky legs. He went down three times before he'd covered the first hundred feet, twice more in the next fifty before collapsing onto the pile of rubble that would serve as his ladder to reach the surface. Dean glanced up; he was almost there. He just had to scale the debris to get to fresh air and a stronger radio signal that would get him the help he needed to free his brother. He exhaled slowly, rallying his strength; he'd need everything he had left just to stand up, let alone make a three-story climb. But he had to—for Sam. "Move your ass, Winchester," he muttered as he unsteadily pushed himself to his feet.

Needing both hands for climbing, Dean dropped his rifle, reached up and scrabbled at the pile of rock and dirt until he found a solid handhold. With a groan, he jammed his boot in between two rocks and hauled himself up. It was slow going, each inch he climbed stealing more of his strength, his arms and legs becoming less and less co-operative.

He was about ten feet from his goal when a rock under his right foot gave way. His arms no longer had the strength to support his weight and he fell, careening down the rubble and slamming onto the tunnel floor. Instinctively, he threw an arm around his head as protection against the dirt and debris that came down in an avalanche after him. Only one rock slipped past his defenses, but that one smashed into the back of his head.

"No," was all Dean managed before consciousness was pulled from him and the teasingly close daylight once again disappeared into pitch black.

**xxxXXXxxx**

_**Thirty-six hours earlier…**_

Sam stood next to the body laid out on the metal table in the morgue, leaning in to study the head. The forest ranger's neck and throat were ripped open, dried blood matting his hair, staining his skin and teeth and stiffening the fabric of his uniform shirt. His eyes were wide open, locked on some unknown horror, his mouth frozen in a silent scream.

Sam tried gently turning the head but the neck muscles were locked. He looked up at Dr. Matt Jamieson, the coroner for Anderson County, Tennessee and the man who'd called in the Winchesters to help with the case. "This is obviously the latest victim. He's still in rigor, which means he's been dead less than 12 hours."

The coroner nodded. "He was killed just before you arrived in town. He was tracking in the bush on South Mountain and missed a check-in. When they went looking for him, this is what they found."

"Tracking?" Dean frowned as he read through the report inside the open file folder he held. "Wait, they think a bobcat or a bear is responsible for these attacks?"

"What? No way." Sam picked up the crime scene photos the coroner had given him earlier, studying the ground around the body and the prints in the mud. "This man fought against his attacker, but there are no animal prints that I can see." He turned back to the body, leaning forward to examine the bite mark on the ranger's neck. He tilted the light above the table, his frown deepening as he focused it on the neck wounds. "Whatever did this was no animal, not the four-legged kind, anyway." He clicked off the light and looked over at Matt and Dean. "These are human bite marks."

Matt closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "Thank you."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "'Scuze me?"

Matt glanced down at the body. "After the autopsy of the first victim, I put in my report that the body showed evidence of human bite marks. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was wrong."

Dean scowled. "By who?"

"The mayor, Harland Ryder." Matt gestured to the files Dean held. "Those are…_sanitized_ versions of my reports, with all references to human bite marks removed. Forgive me for not being completely upfront with you, but I wanted you to come to your own conclusions."

Sam peeled off his blue Latex gloves. "What's the mayor's game? I mean, no town wants to stir up public panic over a case like this, but there's a big difference between that and falsifying evidence."

"You're damn right, there is." Matt pulled up the sheet to cover the body. "This man lost his life because the town is trying to bury the truth behind some fiction." The coroner glanced from Sam to Dean. "You two helped me out when I was in Atlanta, showed me there are more things out there than they taught us about in med school. Whatever's doing this has now killed four times. I don't want there to be a fifth. I'm being blocked on all official channels so—"

"That's why we're here." Dean closed the folder. "But what makes you think this is one of our playmates at work, and not some…Smoky Mountain Jeffrey Dahmer?"

Matt removed his gloves. "If this was a serial killer, trust me, Mayor Ryder would be hounding the sheriff, the state troopers and the F.B.I. to find the son of a bitch, make this town safe again. But he wants this kept quiet." He shook his head. "Besides, human killers leave evidence behind, no matter how careful they are. With these killings, there's next to nothing —and that made me think of you two."

Dean snorted. "When crazy happens, people often think of us." He stared down at the covered body. "You get the sense the mayor knows what's going on? That maybe something like this has happened before?"

Matt shrugged. "I've only lived in Camden Hollow a couple of years. I did some digging after the third murder, looked into any earlier cases that involved supposed animal attacks. They seem legit, but—"

"There's always a chance those files were _sanitized_, too." Sam glanced over at Dean. "Looks like we need to have a chat with Mayor Ryder."

Matt rolled the gurney holding the ranger's body over to a bank of refrigerated drawers. "I wanted to ask around but it's a small town. I start asking questions about a killer who rips each victim's throat out with his bare teeth—"

"And you'll be branded the town looney inside a week." Dean clapped Matt on the shoulder. "Leave it to us. Looney's one of the nicer things we've been called."

Sam stared at the covered body. "You said the killer left _almost_ no evidence behind. What did you find?"

"In addition to bite marks, there was one more thing the mayor wanted taken out of the official reports." Matt massaged the back of his neck. "I found traces of coal dust on the skin of each victim."

Sam's frown returned. "Don't take this the wrong way but, so? This is a mining town, right?"

Matt nodded. "Exactly. About seventy-five percent of the people who live here either work in the mines or for one of the support industries. It's hard to drive down Main Street without getting coal dust on you."

Dean's frown now matched Sam's. "But if it means nothing, why pull it from the report? Did the mayor give you a reason?"

"Said he didn't want to drag the town's largest employer through the mud when a mangy cat was likely to blame for the deaths." Matt walked to a locked cabinet at the side of the room, opened it with a key from his pocket and withdrew a thick file. "Here's what I managed to find out about each of the victims, including everything that's not in the official reports."

"Thanks." Dean tucked the file inside his jacket and began walking toward the door. "We'll start poking around, see what we can find."

Sam, heading for the door, turned back to Matt. "If we wanted to talk to someone about local history, local legends…maybe someone who might know why the mayor's acting all hinky, anyone you'd suggest?"

Matt rubbed a hand across his chin. "There's Dan Culpepper over at the Historical Society. Old guy likes to talk so be prepared to be there a while. But for my money, your best bet is Gwyneth Jones, the former county librarian. Folks call her Miss Gwyn and if it happened here in her lifetime, she knows about it. Has tea and a honeybun at Molly's Café on Main Street every day except Sunday, at two o'clock, on the nose."

Dean grinned as he followed Sam to the door. "Sounds a little set in her ways for my taste, but thanks. We find out anything, we'll be in touch."

**xxxXXXxxx**

"There was too much blood left for vamps." Dean finished his slice of pizza, wiped his fingers and grabbed his beer. "What else likes chowing down on longpig?"

"Dude, I'm still eating." Sam looked down at his pizza, grimaced, and dropped the unfinished slice back into the box. "Or not." He pushed the box away from his computer and pulled the file folders holding the coroner's reports from underneath it. "Besides, there's nothing to suggest the ranger or any of the other victims were eaten. Well, not by what killed them anyway." He opened the folder, flipping through the reports inside. "Two of the four victims were ripped apart by scavengers, postmortem, but whatever killed all four was only interested in that, killing them—even if the killer did use his teeth as the murder weapon."

Dean gave an exaggerated shudder as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "That just sounds wrong, no matter how many times I hear it. Okay, something human ripped its victims' throats out but didn't eat them. That rules out rugarus, ghouls, zombies, revenants..."

Sam nodded. "And wendigos would haul away victims…."

"To eat later." Dean shuddered for real this time at memories of his own run-in with a wendigo, then drained the last of his beer. "Okay, let's attack it from a different angle. All four victims were found in the backwoods of South Mountain, and all evidence suggests they were killed there. So why would the mayor want any mention of coal dust or the mine pulled from the coroner's reports?"

"I might have something." Sam turned back to his laptop. "While you were on the food run, I was reading through the historical society's database. There's some really fascinating stuff and—"

"Dude, you and me? Very different definitions of _fascinating_." Dean, crossing the room to get another beer from the cooler, pulled a face at the site Sam had open on his screen. "This is gonna be boring, so Cliff's Notes version please."

"Boring, huh?" Sam shot Dean a look. "Since when is an all-out battle—cannons, rifles, the whole nine yards—boring?" He smiled when Dean looked up from the cooler, definitely interested. "South Mountain is listed on the National Registry as a historic battle site."

Dean's eyes widened. "You think whatever's doing this is somehow tied in to a Civil War battle?"

Sam shook his head. "No, the battle took place after the Civil War. It was between the National Guard and miners fighting for better working conditions."

"Okay, professor, you've got my attention." Dean offered Sam another beer, then dropped the cooler lid shut when his brother shook his head. "But stick with the Cliff's Notes. It's too close to bedtime for flashbacks to ninth grade American History. That teacher I had in Michigan? They could've marketed him as an insomnia cure."

Sam couldn't help smiling as he turned back to his laptop and tapped a few buttons. "Okay, in a nutshell, Camden Hollow was established in the reconstruction years after the Civil War and, according to what I've read, there have been mines operating here ever since."

He turned again to face Dean. "This part of the state was settled by Welsh miners. They were brought over to the U.S. before the war to get the mines up and running, and then to work in them.

"But after the war, Tennessee was broke so the state passed a bill to allow prisoners to work the mines. Private industry loved it because they got cheap labor. The state loved it because they didn't have to build prisons and got paid by the mining companies for each convict put to work. The mines here in Anderson County relied heavily on convict labor. But the prisoners weren't trained miners and conditions were bad. Those two things alone led to a lot of accidents, a lot of deaths."

Dean took another drink of his beer. "Any of those criminals convicted of eating their coworkers?"

Sam ignored him. "The Welsh miners refused to work with the convicts, saying their lack of training put every miner's life at risk. Most of them moved on to work in mines that didn't use convict labor. But as the death toll kept rising in the convict mines, it was the Welsh miners who led the fight for better working conditions for everyone."

Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam. "So, what? You think the ghost of Norma Rae is behind these deaths?"

Sam snorted. "I'm impressed you even know who that is, but no. It all led to that battle I was talking about. Labor disputes in those days went way further than the picket line. And those battles between the miners and the state forces were staged in the woods on South Mountain, right where the murders are taking place. That could be the link we're looking for."

"Damn." Dean sank down onto his bed. "So we're looking at a whole battlefield of potential vengeful spirits?"

Sam nodded. "Maybe more."

Dean stared at his brother incredulously. "How the hell could it be more?"

Sam shrugged. "Remember the reason for the battle. Unsafe conditions led to who knows how many deaths in the mines." He turned back to his computer and clicked open another screen. "The Swancott Mine, the largest in the area, runs underneath South Mountain. It didn't exist at the time of the battle but two older mines on either side of the Swancott operation did. Both had fairly spotty safety records and have long been abandoned and sealed up. But this is where it gets really interesting." He turned back to Dean. "Turns out methane gas is a byproduct of coal mining. Two months ago, there was a small explosion in an unused tunnel and Swancott engineers discovered methane leaking into their operation from one of the abandoned mines. A crew was sent out to dig bore holes from the surface into the old mine to allow the gas to vent. I'm thinking when they punched those holes into the old tunnels-"

"They let something out." Dean pressed his cold bottle of beer against his forehead. "That's a lot of potential angry spirit suspects, but it still doesn't tell us why the hell whoever it is, is ripping victims' throats out with their teeth?"

"Or how they're picking their victims." Sam's chair creaked as he sat back. "Turns out, it's hunting season. The state handed out over 5,000 licenses this year, so the backwoods of South Mountain have been pretty busy over the past month and we have four deaths. Obviously, whatever this is, it's not going after everyone."

"So who are our victims?"

Sam picked up the papers Matt had given them at the morgue, flipping through each page. "Tom Griffiths, the first man killed, was a Swancott engineer. He was part of the team assigned to vent the methane gas. He disappeared and they found his body two days later, torn to shreds. The rest of his crew weren't touched and say they saw nothing.

"Victim number two is David Evans, a state workplace safety inspector, assigned to the Anderson County mines. He was hunting with three buddies when he was killed."

Dean's frown deepened. "None of his buddies were harmed?"

Sam shook his head as he flipped to the next report. "Victim number three is a Lloyd Clayton, a fourth generation miner and a vice-president of Local 341. He was also hunting with buddies and, like the others, it got him but didn't touch his friends. He was the other one ripped apart post-mortem."

Dean swung his legs off the bed, resting his beer bottle on his knee. "What about the forest ranger? He was alone, right?"

Sam turned to the last report. "Ranger Trevor Davis served as the county's liaison between the forestry service and the mining industry. Part of his job was to make sure the mine owners followed all environmental protocols, to protect the animals, plant life, water quality, yadda, yadda, yadda, in the land surrounding the mine." He dropped the papers back on the table. "And while the official report says he was tracking when he was killed, he was actually checking methane levels from the mine vents."

Dean reached over to set his beer bottle on the nightstand. "So, all the victims had jobs related to mine safety." He shrugged at Sam. "If the spirit is a miner who died in unsafe conditions, or died on the mountain fighting for better conditions, I could see it going after them for not doing their job. You know, putting other miners at risk."

"But that doesn't explain the M.O., and," Sam tapped the sheaf of papers on the desk, "from what I've read, these men were good at their jobs. There hasn't been a serious accident at Swancott for over thirty-five years. So why now?"

"Because whatever was in that mine couldn't get out until now." Dean stood up and stretched. "We need to know what happened in that mine."

Sam slouched back in his chair. "Basics are easy. During the Civil War, Tennessee needed coal to fuel the war effort. At that time, this whole area was uninhabited, so the state kept the mine under the radar. If the Union Army didn't know it existed, they couldn't target it. The mine pumped out coal for the Confederacy until the end of the war. At that point, it was shut down."

Dean frowned. "It never reopened?"

Sam shook his head. "Other mines were established around it, but that one stayed dark."

"Makes you wonder why. Anyone die while it was operating?"

Sam shrugged. "Like I said, basics are easy but beyond that, there's nothing. No records of how many men worked in the mine, how many died…nada. Now, war was under way so it could be just crappy recordkeeping, but if I was the suspicious type, I'd say someone's trying to hide something."

"Well I'm definitely suspicious and I say we need to get a look inside that mine." Dean was pacing now. "It still sealed up?"

"Yes and no." Sam sat up. "Both official entrances are sealed, but the explosion brought down a wall. We can get in through the Swancott operation."

"Sounds good." Dean headed for the bathroom. "Let's set it up for first thing in the morning."

Sam reached for his phone. "Before we talk to the mayor?"

"Definitely." Dean glanced back at Sam. "Once ol' Harland knows we're here, my guess is he'll try to shut us down just like he did Matt. I want a good look inside that mine before he even knows we're poking around."

_**Continued in Chapter 2...**_


	2. Chapter 2

**SUMMARY:** _Casefic. There's something out there in the dark, ripping its victims apart – and now it has Sam and Dean in its sights.._

**SPOILERS:** _Set Season 4ish. A casefic which takes place in-between canon hunts._

**DISCLAIMER:**_ The characters of Supernatural belong to Eric Kripke & Co. I am playing in their sandbox, with their toys, with much gratitude._

**RATING:**_ T for some swearing._

**WORD COUNT:**_ 27K_

**GENRE:**_ Gen/Hurt-Comfort/Adventure_

**Stay in the Light**

**Chapter 2**

"You boys all set?" The question came from Gus Cadwalader, the burly Swancott foreman assigned to suit up the Winchesters for their trek into the old mine.

After zipping up his bright orange coveralls, Dean nodded at Gus. He adjusted his hard hat, then reached down to his waist and flicked the switch on the battery pack on his belt to ensure the helmet light was working. "Let's get this show on the road."

The mine owners had been working with the Environmental Protection Agency over the gas leak that had triggered the recent explosion. After a stop at Kwik Kopy for new IDs and with some help from Bobby, the brothers had secured access to the mine as EPA agents.

Gus gestured for the brothers to follow him as he left the Swancott offices and headed for the mine entrance. "Listen, we appreciate you fellas coming down here so quickly."

Sam grabbed his air tanks and mask, which looked much like those used by firefighters, and fell in step behind Gus and his brother. "Mind me asking why the rush? I mean, this is not a working mine and you've vented it. Standard procedure is to let it bleed out so, why the S.O.S.?" He ignored the "_Geek"_ Dean mouthed at him behind Gus's back.

Gus just shook his head. "You can thank our mayor for any overtime you put in on this trip. Trust me, we were prepared to let the gas bleed out. Mayor Ryder's the one who wants the shutdown fast-tracked."

Dean exchanged looks with Sam. "Why's the mayor got his panties in a bunch?"

Gus shrugged. "After he heard the old mine had been breached, he showed up here the next day, demanding we close it up ASAP and telling anyone who'd listen how dangerous it was. Didn't take too kindly to hearing that it was even more dangerous to seal it up before all the gas was vented."

Dean slung his small duffel over his shoulder. "Any of the gas bleeding into the working mine?"

Gus shook his head. "Like I said, it's venting safely. As far as we're concerned, it was just a matter of monitoring the emissions. Mayor Ryder nearly turned purple though when I told him that. Guess he's got some pull with the mine owners because now you're here. Anyway, your ride's over here." He gestured toward a vehicle that resembled a flattened dune buggy as he turned to Sam. "You clear where to park it?

Sam nodded. "Tunnel 26F."

"Good." Gus helped the brothers stow their gear in the back of the vehicle. "Breathing gear is mandatory beyond that point. We've given you dual tanks and a spare, each with a breathing capacity of about three hours. As I'm sure you know, the deeper you go, the faster you move…." He shot a glance at Sam. "The bigger you are, the more air you use. Watch your gauges and give yourselves plenty of time to get back topside.

"If you plan to talk to each other, make sure your radios are plugged in before you put your gear on. Oh, and you'll need these, too." Gus handed Sam a folded piece of paper and a can of spray paint. "That's a map of the mine. It's old and incomplete but, trust me, you'll need it. It's pitch black down there and nothing's signposted. Spraypaint's fluorescent, so mark your way as your go. Last thing I need is you two lost in there."

Dean snorted. "Trust me, that's the last thing I need, too."

Gus nodded. "If you find the source, set the explosives, clear out, and we'll blow it after quitting time. Just remember what I told you, and you'll be safe. Can't say you'll be comfortable." He glanced again at Sam. "'Specially you, son. Mines just weren't built for men your size."

"A lot of things weren't built for men his size," Dean muttered as he slid behind the wheel of the mantrip, the name Gus had used for the vehicle that would take them into the mine. Once in the driver's seat, he was almost lying down. "This supposed to be like this?"

Gus smiled as he pressed a switch on the steering column that dropped the wheel to within Dean's reach from his reclined position. "We don't waste time digging great big entrance halls to our mines. We just need enough space to get this buggy through and get us to where the coal is. In some places, the ceiling ain't more than three feet high. You sit up, you're gonna lose your head." He turned to Sam. "Lie down behind him and be prepared to duck." His smile faded. "I'm serious, fellas. Watch yourselves."

Dean glanced over his shoulder. "You all tucked in, Sammy?"

"Good to go." Sam was lying on the seat behind Dean, stretched width-wise across the mantrip and resting on his elbows.

Dean pressed the button to start the electric engine. "Later, Gus. Thanks."

Gus nodded, shouting over the engine noise, "Like I said, watch yourselves."

Dean gave Gus a casual salute, then hit the accelerator and moved forward into the tunnel. Sam held onto his hardhat as the tunnel bounced them around inside the mantrip, then slid down even further after his helmet bounced off the ceiling a second time.

It took them about fifteen minutes of snaking down through the mountain before the tunnel opened up to the point where Sam could sit up without fear of cracking his head. It was another ten minutes before they reached the tunnel that now offered access to the old mine.

Dean eased the mantrip to a halt when the vehicle lights picked up 26F spray-painted on the rock wall, and shut off the engine. "We hoof it from here, right?"

Sam nodded, groaning lightly as he unfolded himself from the vehicle and stood up. "The old tunnel's too narrow for the mantrip, so— Ow!"

Dean snorted as Sam's head hit the ceiling, his helmet tipping at a comical angle.

"Jerk." Sam took off his helmet and hunched over slightly as he grabbed his air tanks, threaded his arms through the harness that would hold them on his back and fastened the straps across his chest. "Guess sometimes it pays to be short."

"Hey, I don't fit either, asshat." Dean stood slowly, deliberately not quite straightening up as he pulled on his breathing gear. "You got the map?"

Sam nodded. After settling the mask over his face, he plugged in his radio, opened the air flow valve and then replaced his helmet. As Dean did the same, Sam pulled the map from the zippered breast pocket of his coveralls, checked it, then motioned to their left. "We go that way."

Dean unzipped his duffel and handed Sam one of the two air rifles he'd adapted to fire salt shot. Since shotguns and gas didn't play nice together, he'd been forced to get creative when it came to a way to protect themselves from any angry spirits they may run into in the mine.

Sam quickly inspected the weapon. "Uses compressed co2, right?"

Dean nodded. "Won't blow us up when we fire it, but the range sucks. Make sure you're close before pulling the trigger."

Sam snorted at that. "Getting close to fuglies never seems to be a problem."

Dean couldn't disagree with that. He grabbed the EMF, which stayed quiet, slung the duffel back on his shoulder and headed down the tunnel with Sam on his heels. The tunnel was much like the one they'd driven down, just smaller in scale. As Gus had promised, it was pitch black except for the lights on their helmets and the temperature was cool but comfortable. The foreman had told them that the mine stayed around 65° Fahrenheit year-round, no matter what the outside temperature.

After walking for about ten minutes, the brothers' pace slowed when the tunnel floor became littered with debris.

"And here it is." Dean came to a sudden halt when the beam from his helmet lamp fell on a large hole in the wall to their right, the opening blocked off with yellow _Caution_ tape and a big _Do Not Enter: Unsafe_ sign. Dean moved toward the opening, poking his head through the tape to see what was beyond.

It was then that the EMF meter in his pocket screeched.

Dean shot Sam a look, yanked down the tape, and moved cautiously into the old mine. Sam tucked the map into his pocket and, once again, fell in step behind his brother.

The age of the tunnel was evident in the way it was constructed. Instead of the metal support beams that braced the modern mine tunnels, this one was held up by wooden railroad ties every ten to fifteen feet, the wood gray and cracked with age.

The farther they walked into the old mine, the louder the EMF wailed. After about thirty minutes, Dean came to a sudden halt when the Plexiglas of his breathing mask began to frost at the edges. "Heads up, Sammy. We've got company."

Like Dean, Sam had his gun raised. He adjusted his grip on the trigger, then shuddered as the hairs on the back of his neck bristled. Turning suddenly, he started at the sight of a large man who appeared out of nowhere behind him. Instinct kicked in and he fired, the spirit snapping his head away from Sam and shielding his eyes with an agonized yell as he dissipated under the rock salt shot.

"Sam?"

Seeing nothing else behind him, Sam turned to face his brother. "It was— Dean, down!" He fired over his brother as Dean hit the dirt, his shot hitting a small, skinny man square in the chest. Like the first spirit, this ghost raised his arm as the beam from Sam's helmet light hit him a second before the salt shot.

Dean's eyes were wide as he looked up at Sam. "Mind telling me what you're shooting at?"

Sam was still scanning the tunnel as he offered a hand to help Dean up. "Spirit, or, technically, two of 'em."

"Two?" Dean grabbed Sam's wrist and hauled himself to his feet. "Two _different_ ghosts?"

Sam nodded. "One big guy, one smaller guy. Both kinda skinny."

"Son of a bitch," Dean spat. "'Cause one spook isn't enough. We—" He shoved Sam out of the way, raised his gun, and fired at the ghost that appeared suddenly behind his brother.

Sam's eyes were wide as he turned to Dean. "Big one or little one?"

Dean shrugged. "Compared to what? Looked kinda medium to me. He—"

Sam grunted when a large chunk of rock slammed into the side of his head. His helmet was knocked off as he hit the wall and slid down it.

Dean spun in the direction the rock came from but the gun was pulled from his hands as he raised it. Something slammed into his chest, forcing the air from his lungs as it knocked him to the tunnel floor. His helmet was jarred loose when he landed and, for a brief moment as the beam of the lamp swung around, he caught a glimpse of the spirit kneeling on his chest. He was big but skinny, his clothes filthy, baggy and ragged, and he had a full beard covering his face. But it was his eyes that were instantly memorable: all white except for pinprick black pupils. He snarled and lunged down at Dean just as the light disappeared and he was once again cloaked by darkness.

Dean couldn't breathe; the specter had its hands clamped tightly around his throat. He coughed and choked as he fought to free himself, his struggles intensifying when he realized the spirit was also pushing his head to the side. Images of the victim in the morgue filled his head: the throat ripped open, the skin jagged and torn.

"Hey!"

Sam's deep shout echoed through the tunnel at the same time a brilliant flashlight beam hit the spirit. The ghost threw its arm across its face to hide from the light, its scream of rage feral and easily overpowering the thud from Sam's gun. The spirit dissipated, and so to did the pressure on Dean's chest and throat.

Dean coughed and retched as he sucked in air greedily, rolling onto his side and grabbing for his gun and his helmet. He settled the helmet back on his head as he shakily sat up and looked over at Sam.

His brother was still sitting on the tunnel floor, legs stretched out in front of him, his gun in one hand, their big Mag-Lite in the other. Sam's helmet was on the ground beside him but still tethered to the battery pack on his belt, the light pointing up the tunnel in the direction they'd come.

Sam's eyes were screwed closed, but it was the blood running down his temple along the edge of his mask that grabbed Dean's attention.

"Sammy?"

Sam let his head fall back against the tunnel wall and forced open his eyes, squinting over at Dean. "Y'okay?"

Dean snorted as he dragged himself closer to Sam. "You're the one bleeding."

"What?" When Dean gestured to the side of his head, Sam pressed his fingers there and winced. "Oh. It's…nothing." He glanced down the tunnel. "The spirits…don't think they like…the light." He turned back to Dean. "We need to…to keep the light on."

Dean was at Sam's side now, fingers locked on his brother's chin and gently turning his head to inspect the injury. The mask made it hard to examine but the cut didn't look deep, probably wouldn't even need stitches, but like most head wounds was bleeding heavily. Dean cast a wary eye around the tunnel. "Sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." Sam blinked slowly as he looked up at Dean. "We should go."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Dean carefully placed Sam's helmet back on his head, then grabbed their duffel before threading his left arm behind Sam's back. "On three. Two…three."

With a synchronized grunt, the brothers pushed themselves to their feet. Dean tightened his grip on Sam's shirt as his brother swayed, then relaxed his hold as Sam found his balance. "Seriously, Sammy. You good, or you gonna faceplant on me?"

"M'good." Sam frowned as he stared down at the Mag-Lite still tightly gripped in his hand. He fumbled with it a bit as he turned it around so the beam was pointing behind them. He looked across at Dean and offered a tired smile. "They always came from behind—in the dark." He swallowed. "Gotta make sure they don't sneak up on us. Again."

Dean smiled. "That Ivy League brain of yours may be dented, but it's still working better than most." He glanced around again. "But I've got another idea."

He fumbled through his duffel, pulled out a canister of salt and poured a thick line across the width of the mine. "If they're behind us, they're staying behind us…." Dean picked up their guns, then pulled Sam's arm across his shoulders and starting moving back toward the mantrip. "But keep that light on in case they bounced this side of the line." He swallowed. "Now let's get back topside, and figure out who the hell these bastards are."

**xxxXXXxxx**

"Ow!"

"Hold still, you big baby. I"ve gotta get the dirt out."

"Damn it, Dean, I can do it myself."

"No, you can't. It's on your temple. You'd be working half-blind. Now quit squirming. You weren't this bad when you five and fell off that swing set."

"Well, you weren't such a jackass back then— Son of a bitch!"

"And you didn't have such a potty mouth. Okay, fair's fair. Guess I should've warned you about the antiseptic. Stings, huh?"

"Sadist." Sam was sitting on the closed toilet seat, holding a clean facecloth to his temple and glaring up at Dean. "I think we're done."

"Not quite." Dean capped the bottle of antiseptic, then grabbed a butterfly bandage from the first-aid kit open on the vanity. "I've got to butterfly that shut."

"Let me do it."

"Sam." Dean didn't budge; he just stood there, expectantly, holding the bandage.

Sam huffed out a breath, but dropped his hand and the facecloth into his lap.

Dean took a step closer, eyes narrowing as he studied the gash. It ran in a jagged line down Sam's temple from inside his hairline to the base of his eye. It would have waitresses of all ages fussing over his brother for the next week, but the damage was mostly superficial. Sam had quickly regained his balance and his senses as they moved through the tunnel. He'd also made it to the car under his own steam while Dean returned their equipment to Gus, blaming Sam's injury and their shortened trip on falling rubble.

On the ride home, Sam had admitted to a headache but, as far as Dean could tell, a concussion seemed unlikely.

"Dude, any day now. My ass is asleep from sitting so long."

"Yeah, yeah." Sam's bitching pulled Dean from his reverie. He quickly pulled the skin together, pressed three butterfly bandages in place along the gash, then covered the whole thing with a gauze bandage. "Keep that on overnight—to protect the bedding more than your head," he added when he saw Sam about to object. "We're almost out of cash. We need our damage deposit back."

Sam bit back his protest and nodded. He glanced up at Dean as he ran his fingers lightly over the bandage. "Thanks, but your bedside manner needs a serious overhaul."

"Bitch—and you're welcome." Dean grabbed an amber pill bottle from the first-aid kit and pressed it into his brother's hand. "Two of those should kill the headache. Gatorade's in the cooler."

Sam groaned as he stood up but was steady as walked back into the room.

While packing up the first-aid supplies, Dean watched surreptitiously through the bathroom mirror as Sam grabbed the drink and downed the pills. "You got any idea what the hell those things were that came after us?"

Sam put down his drink on the nightstand and pulled off his long-sleeved shirt, rolled it into a ball, and shoved it into the duffel pocket that held dirty clothes. "The obvious answer is spirits of dead miners, but their eyes…" He turned to Dean. "You saw them, right? The weird eyes?"

"Yeah." Dean washed his hands, then walked back into the room while drying them on a hand towel. "I mean, I saw the eyes of the bastard trying to choke me and rip out my jugular. You saying the others had the creepy white eyes, too?"

Sam nodded. "They're kinda hard to miss." He sank down on the edge of his bed and toed off his boots. "What would make a spirit's eyes turn white?"

Dean shook his head. "Maybe that's something we should ask the mayor. First he screws with the coroner's reports on the victims. Second, he flips out when he finds the old mine's been breached and wants it sealed up pronto. Pretty damn sure he's got some idea about what's going on down there."

Sam pulled his legs up onto the bed and fell back onto the pillows with a groan. "But you know he's gonna stonewall us. What about that, um, Miss Gwyn that Matt told us about? She's likely to be more cooperative."

"Then I say we divide and conquer." Dean sank down onto the edge of his lumpy motel mattress, facing Sam. "Old ladies love you. Must be that puppy-dog thing you do. You talk to the librarian, I'll go see the mayor. I'm much better with dicks."

He froze when he realized what he'd said. Sam was staring in disbelief, his mouth breaking into a wide grin.

"Not a word, Sammy. Not a word." Dean glared at his brother for emphasis. "I mean it, or so help me, head injury or not, I _will_ hit you."

He grabbed clean clothes and disappeared back into the bathroom, the sound of Sam's laughter filling the room even after he slammed the door.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Mayor Harland Ryder was a round-faced man with thick gray hair and a self-satisfied manner that told Dean he was used to getting his way.

"So you were in the mine yesterday." The mayor was studying his visitor with the same intensity Dean was studying him. "See anything…unusual?"

"Unusual?" Dean's eyes widened innocently. "Like what?"

Mayor Ryder scowled. "Like the source of that damned gas leak."

"Well, yesterday was just a preliminary walk through." Dean smiled, deciding it was time to push the mayor's buttons. "We'll go back in the next day or so. Continue our search."

"The next day or so…." The mayor's expression darkened. "Now look, son. I thought I made myself clear to the mine owners. That old mine is to be closed up immediately. And if that takes men working around the clock to find this damn gas leak, that's what should be happening. If I have to call the owners again and—"

"There really is nothing to worry about as far as the gas is concerned, Mr. Mayor." Dean offered his best smile and kept his voice level and calm, knowing just how much both would piss off the man on the other side of the desk. "Methane is only dangerous to human beings if they're trapped with it in a confined space. The mine crew did a great job venting it. If we're lucky, it'll bleed itself dry and then we won't have to worry about sealing up the old mine at all. We'll just—"

Dean feigned surprise when the mayor slammed his fist on his desk.

"That mine _will_ be closed." Mayor Ryder's face had reddened, his chest heaving noticeably as he fought to reel in his temper. He forced a smile. "It's dangerous. I…I do not want kids getting hurt because they decided to go exploring."

Dean face creased with faux concern. "I understand, Mr. Mayor, but the only way to get into that mine is through the Swancott tunnels. There's no way for John or Jane Public to just wander in there. You can relax on—"

"That's not the point." The mayor was almost shouting. He cleared his throat and dropped his voice back to a conversational tone. "This is not a debate, son. I repeat, that mine _will_ be closed."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Tell me, what is it you're so worried about?"

The mayor's eyes glinted with anger. "I am worried about the safety of my constituents. That's all you need concern yourself with."

"You asked before if I saw anything unusual. Well, now I think of it…." Dean leaned forward in his chair, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Have you heard any stories about…about ghosts in that mine?"

Mayor Ryder blanched. "Ghosts?" He quickly schooled his features. "Ghost stories are for children, boy."

"Funny." Dean bit back a smile. "I'd have sworn you were a believer because, right now, you sure look like you've seen a ghost. Now, I'm not judging. I've seen some weird stuff in my time too, but—"

"I believe our time is up." The mayor stood suddenly. "You go bothering folk with Halloween stories and I'll make sure you're on the unemployment line by week's end. You find the source of that gas leak and you get that mine closed. End of story. We clear?"

"Crystal." Dean grinned as he stood up, offering the mayor his hand. The mayor made no move to reciprocate. "Alrighty then. Back to work it is. Mr. Mayor." With a wink, Dean turned and left the mayor's office.

He pulled out his phone and punched in Sam's number as he jogged down the town hall steps.

"_Dean_?"

"The mayor definitely knows something about those ghosts. Threatened to get me fired if I kept talking about 'em. You got anything?"

"_Think so_. _I'm still at the diner with Miss Gwyn_."

"Still?" Dean stepped off the curb and rounded the Impala. "You're slipping, Sammy. Guess you should've worn the tighter t-shirt."

"_Dude, just meet us here_."

Dean grinned. "Be there in fifteen."

He found a parking spot easily, and less than ten minutes after hanging up the phone entered the diner. A bell jangled as he pushed open the door. Stepping inside was a bit like stepping back into the 1950s. A counter ran the length of the restaurant, red swivel stools anchored in front of it. Red vinyl booths lined two of the walls, while small chrome and laminate tables filled the center. There were a dozen or so customers spread throughout the diner, but it was easy to find Sam, who was sitting in the middle booth by the far window, towering over the tiny white-haired woman on the opposite seat.

As he approached, he noted an empty plate in front of his brother, a few crumbs all that remained of whatever he'd had to eat. Sam cradled a mug of coffee in his hands as he listened intently to Miss Gwyn. The librarian's pastry was only half-eaten, her fork placed neatly on the plate beside it, while she refilled her cup from a china teapot decorated with red roses.

She set down the pot and looked up curiously as Dean approached the table. "If I was a betting woman, I'd say this is your brother, Dean."

Sam looked up and nodded. "Yes, ma'am." He slid across the seat, moving closer to the window to make room for Dean, pulling his mug and empty plate with him. "Dean, I'd like you meet Miss Gwyn Jones, retired Anderson County librarian and local historian."

Miss Gwyn smiled at Sam, obviously smitten with his little brother. "You flatter me, Sam." She waved a hand, inviting Dean to sit down. "But the truth of the matter is, that's just a fancy way of saying I love books and I'm nosy." Her smile widened as Sam blushed. "Both of which are true, by the way."

"It's a pleasure, ma'am." Dean sank into the booth beside Sam. He flashed his most genuine smile; there was something eminently likeable about Miss Gwyn, a rare quality in the people who populated the Winchesters' universe. "And I've always found a healthy curiosity a very attractive, and useful, trait."

"Indeed?" Miss Gwyn's blue eyes, clear and bright despite her age, studied him intently.

Dean guessed she was around eighty. She was small and trim, her snow-white hair pulled back in a neat bun, her simple yellow dress topped with a white cardigan.

The lines around her eyes and mouth deepened as she returned his smile. "I'll bet you've stirred up some trouble in your time, young man. That many a young lady's will has melted under that smile."

Now it was Dean's turn to blush. He kicked Sam under the table when his brother snorted softly. "So, what have you two crazy kids been chatting about, huh? Wanna fill me in?"

"First things first. Where are my manners?" Miss Gwyn raised an arthritic hand to summon the big man behind the restaurant counter.

He wore a cook's white t-shirt, pants and apron and cast a suspicious glance at the brothers as he approached the table. "You okay, Miss Gwyn? These boys bothering you?"

"Not at all. They are my guests." She smiled sweetly. "But I thank you for your concern, Molly."

"Molly?" Dean looked in surprise at the big, balding man, his apron knotted in front over a good-sized beer gut. "You're the _Molly_ in Molly's Diner?"

"Gentlemen, may I introduce Mr. Mollsworth Tipton, the former star linebacker for the Davy Crockett High School Lions, former hellion in my library, and now maker of the best honeybuns this side of the Smoky Mountains." Miss Gwyn nodded at the brothers. "Molly, this is Dean and Sam. They lived in Clinton for a brief time before their daddy's work took them out of state. They're in town on business and dropped by to say hello to their old librarian. Sam here seems to think I may have played some role in him being accepted at Stanford."

Molly's protective demeanor relaxed a little. "Stanford, huh?" He took in Sam's height and the width of his shoulders. "You play for the Cards?"

Sam shook his head. "No, um, law school didn't leave much time for football."

Dean kept his expression neutral as he listened to the exchange, piecing together what had happened in his absence. Sam had obviously earned Miss Gwyn's trust, to the point that whatever fiction he'd fed her as the reason they were in town, she now felt comfortable embroidering those lies for Molly to keep his suspicions at bay. They had an ally in this Miss Gwyn.

"Dean?"

He tuned back in when he realized Miss Gwyn was looking at him curiously. "Ma'am?"

"Your coffee. How do you take it?"

"Black, thanks."

Miss Gwyn turned to Molly. "That's it then, a coffee and a honeybun for Dean, and a refill for Sam."

Molly nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

Miss Gwyn cast a subtle glance around the restaurant as she sipped her tea. "I can see the tongues are wagging already, wondering why I have two such handsome gentlemen callers." She set down her cup and winked at the brothers. "Well, let them talk. At my stage of life, rumors like that can only enhance my reputation."

Dean looked a little shocked but Sam snorted, a wide grin creasing his face.

Miss Gwyn smoothed the napkin in her lap. "Now, before you arrived, Dean, Sam was telling me about the real purpose for your visit to Camden Hollow — that you don't believe animals are responsible for the horrible deaths that have been in the papers recently."

Great. Dean's smile froze in place. He'd arrived right at the point where they told the nice old lady that ghosts are real, and they hunted them. There was a damn good chance he wouldn't get so much as a bite of one of Molly's famous pastries before Miss Gwyn kicked their asses to the curb.

Sam seemed to read his mind. "It's okay, Dean. I told Miss Gwyn what we do, and she didn't throw her honeybun at me or tell me to get the hell…er, heck outta Dodge."

That news raised Dean's eyebrow.

Miss Gwyn chuckled. "I'm eighty-four years old, Dean. In my lifetime, I've heard things that would likely curl your toes — even knowing what you do for a living. I've read ghost stories since I was a little girl and, over the years, the historian in me has discovered most are based in fact. To dismiss something because you haven't seen it is a sign of a closed mind and, to me, there's nothing more dangerous."

Dean leaned forward, his smile returning. "Miss Gwyn, I think I'm falling in love with you."

"Oh, don't tease." The librarian winked at him. "But if I were just six decades younger, I bet we could have had some fun." She took another sip of her tea. "But the reason for your visit is serious, so let's get back to business. If you believe a spirit is responsible for the deaths of those poor men, do you know who it is…or was?"

Sam kept his voice low. "We believe there's more than one spirit and they were released accidentally when an explosion opened a Civil War-era mine adjacent to the Swancott operation. It could be related to a battle on South Mountain between state forces and miners fighting for safer working conditions, but what we don't know is how these spirits are picking their victims or why they're killing them so violently. If we can figure out who they are, it might help us answer the other questions."

"These spirits…." Miss Gwyn raised a hand and pointed to the purple and red bruising that ran from Sam's hairline to the base of his left eye. "Are they responsible for that?"

"Yeah." Like Sam, Dean spoke quietly. "We checked out the tunnel yesterday — had a close encounter with these bitches, er, bad guys. That's how Sammy here got the shiner. Looks like there's at least three of them. Strangest thing about them, though, was their eyes, all white with just the tiniest black pupil."

Miss Gwyn's teacup froze halfway to her mouth. Dean and Sam glanced at each other but didn't get a chance to question her reaction since Molly chose that moment to return with their order. All three sat in silence as he placed Dean's honeybun in front of him, then filled up each brother's mug with coffee.

The diner owner turned to Miss Gwyn. "Can I get you anything else?"

Miss Gwyn smiled like they had been discussing nothing more controversial than the weather. "Thank you, Molly. Everything was wonderful, as always. Please put all this on my tab."

"No, please, we can't let you do that." Sam reached into his pocket for his wallet. "You're helping us. We'll take care of this."

"Put your wallet away, young man." Miss Gwyn's tone was all librarian. "You are my guests and this will be my treat. Thank you, Molly."

"Yes, ma'am." The diner owner returned to the kitchen, leaving the three of them alone again.

"If you succeed in hunting down these spirits, preventing anyone else from being hurt or killed, this town will be in your debt." Miss Gwyn picked up her fork. "Now, please, enjoy your coffee." She silenced Dean's objection with a simple look. "I can help you, but here is not the place to have that discussion. When we're done, I would appreciate it if you gentlemen would escort me home. There, we can talk in private." She motioned to Dean's honeybun. "Come on, try that. Ask your brother. It really is as good as they say."

**xxxXXXxxx**

Miss Gwyn's living room reminded Sam a lot of Bobby's study, except neater. Much neater. Books covered every wall but, unlike Bobby's where haphazard stacks spilled onto the floor and any available flat surface, here they were all neatly arranged on shelves, and likely catalogued using the Dewey Decimal system, too.

Miss Gwyn motioned for the brothers to take a seat on her big, overstuffed floral couch before settling into a wing chair opposite them. "I apologize if I seemed abrupt at the diner but your description of the miners startled me, brought back memories of a story I haven't thought about in many, many years."

Sam leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, chin resting on his clasped hands. "So you've heard of the white-eyed miners?"

"Indeed." She pointed to a framed sepia photo on the mantle. "The man in the clerical collar is my granddaddy, Pastor Llewellyn Jones. My parents and I lived with him in a big old drafty house outside town. Folks would often stop by to talk to Granddaddy about things troubling them and, yes, to sometimes confess their sins."

Miss Gwyn threaded her fingers together and settled her hands in her lap, her eyes taking on a faraway look as she tapped into dusty memories. "One night, after bedtime when I was nine or ten, I'd snuck downstairs to his study to get a new book. When the door opened, I hid, knowing I'd be in trouble if I was found downstairs when I should be sleeping. Granddaddy came in with a friend of his, Jeb Clayton, and they settled into the two big leather chairs by the fireplace to talk. I didn't mean to eavesdrop but…."

"You were kinda stuck." Dean leaned forward, encouraging Miss Gwyn to continue.

"Yes. Turns out Jeb had been feeling poorly of late and wanted to get something off his chest if it was time to meet his Maker. Many years before, he'd been part of a hunting party that…." She glanced from Sam to Dean. "Let's just say he played a role in one of this state's dirtiest secrets."

Sam, too, was intrigued. "Please, go on."

"Let me back up a bit." Miss Gwyn cleared her throat. "You know the history of that old mine you were in? That it was established to provide coal for the Confederacy?"

"Yes." Dean sat back. "And it was shut down shortly after the war ended."

Miss Gwyn shook her head. "That's where history becomes fiction in our town records, I'm afraid. In 1862, there was cave-in at the mine and twenty-eight men were trapped underground. Their coworkers on the surface toiled day and night trying to free them, but then the mine bosses got word the Union Army was moving into Eastern Tennessee." The librarian shook her head. "By this point, they knew they were likely on a recovery mission rather than a rescue, so…."

Sam's eyes widened in surprise. "They stopped looking for them?"

Miss Gwyn nodded. "The bosses ordered all the men to abandon the rescue and retreat behind Confederate lines."

Dean glanced at Sam. "So it's the spirits of those abandoned miners we're looking for."

"Yes and no." Miss Gwyn shifted uncomfortably. "What nobody above ground knew was that when the rescue was called off, many of the trapped miners were still alive, frantically trying to claw their way to the surface under the misguided belief that their coworkers were still digging their way down to them."

Sam frowned. "But if no one knew they were still alive, how does anyone know what happened to—" He sat back in surprise. "Damn. They got out, didn't they?"

Miss Gwyn nodded. "They collected water where it dripped through crevices, and drank their own urine. They ate bugs and rats, eventually even the bodies of their fellow miners. Days stretched into weeks and more of them died. They never stopped trying to get out, but they lost all track of time and their minds started to break. Then, almost a month later, a handful of survivors made it to the surface."

"Son of a..." Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they were royally pissed to find crickets chirping where a rescue party should be."

"They snapped." Miss Gwyn shook her head sadly. "What little was left of their sanity vanished the moment they found out they'd been abandoned and left for dead by their employers and so-called friends."

Sam frowned. "Being underground all that time, there'd be no light. Is that what—?"

"Turned their eyes white?" Miss Gwyn nodded. "So the story goes. The survivors eventually made their way back to their homes but were quickly ostracized. They'd changed in ways there was no turning back from. They became known as white-eyed freaks and were forced to retreat into the backwoods of South Mountain. They lived there alone, their anger and isolation further fueling their madness."

Dean glanced over at Sam. "That explains their spirits' ability to leave the mine. They were trapped in the woods in the same way they were trapped in the mine."

"Almost the same way." Miss Gwyn again looked uncomfortable. "The miners stayed hidden until they'd almost been forgotten. Their families preferred to believe they'd died in that mine disaster. A more noble death, I suppose, than becoming a kind of freak.

"But the miners hadn't forgotten the way they'd been treated and, one night, they began to seek their revenge. They started hunting down all those who abandoned them…left them for dead." She closed her eyes. "Their attacks were savage, animalistic…. They ripped out their victims throats with their bare teeth…."

Sam swallowed. "Just like the four recent attacks."

Miss Gwyn looked shocked. "What?"

"Sorry." Sam smiled apologetically. "That information wasn't made public, but the four men who died recently…they, um, were killed the same way."

Dean jumped in to get Miss Gwyn's thoughts off that horrific image and back to her story. "What happened to the freaks? Did anyone try to stop them?"

"Oh, yes." The librarian turned to Dean. "The town council of the day formed a posse to hunt them down. They shot any they found but the last three white-eyed men ran into the old mine to hide. They knew they had an advantage there. They could see in the dark far better than any of the men hunting them. The hunting party followed them in, hoping to corner them but there were a few skirmishes, two of the hunters were killed and the hunt was called off."

Dean's eyes widened in surprise. "They just gave up?"

"No." Miss Gwyn's eyes were glassy with emotion. "They blew up both entrances to the mine, sealing the three surviving men inside."

Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Leaving them to relive their worst nightmare en route to a slow death."

Miss Gwyn nodded. "They even posted guards at both entrances for almost two months to make sure they didn't dig their way free. The mayor of the day, Ezekiel Ryder, made each man on the posse swear on a Bible they would never tell anyone what they'd done. The official story was that the miners simply vanished into the backwoods, never to be seen or heard from again. No one ever spoke of it and, eventually, it all disappeared from the pages of our history."

The librarian glanced at the photo on the mantel. "Jeb Clayton, my granddaddy's friend, he was a young teen when it happened, but he rode with his daddy as part of the hunting party. What they did, and keeping it secret, it gnawed at his conscience the rest of his life. He was an old man when he came to Granddaddy that night, and it was to ask forgiveness—for himself and the souls of all the miners. They prayed together, then Granddaddy went up to the mine and offered a blessing for the lost souls up there."

Dean glanced over at Sam. "I'd say that blessing didn't get through."

Sam frowned. "You said the mayor who swore them to secrecy was a man named Ryder. Any relation to the current mayor?"

Miss Gwyn nodded. "Mayor Harland Ryder is the fifth generation of his family to take office in this town. Been one Ryder or another in power for as long as I've been alive."

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. "And that's why the mayor wants the door slammed shut on that mine. If anyone goes poking around in there and finds human remains, finds out what his ancestor did—"

"They're gonna shake loose a few skeletons from the Ryder family tree." Sam pulled his notebook from his pocket, flipped it open, then glanced over at Miss Gwyn. "One of the victims of the recent attacks was a Lloyd Clayton. Could he be any relation to your grandfather's friend?"

Miss Gwyn thought for a moment. "Lloyd's daddy is Tom, and Tom was the son of Ezra Clayton. Yes, I believe you're right. Ezra was Jeb's grandson."

Sam tapped the notebook as he turned to Dean. "I'll bet if we check the family trees of each of these victims, they'd all be descendents of the men who hunted down the white-eyed freaks. These spirits still want revenge, and they don't seem to care that their victims are five generations removed."

Dean shook his head. "And that would put the mayor on that hit list. The mine stays open and either someone finds those bones or the spirits find a way to get to old Harland. Either way, it makes it clear why he's so horny to get the mine door slammed shut."

Sam raked his fingers through his hair. "'Course, closing the door won't do any good now."

Miss Gwyn looked puzzled. "I'll admit, gentlemen, I'm a little out of depth here, but the mine has been sealed up all these years and there were no attacks. If you re-seal the mine, why wouldn't that stop them?"

Dean shrugged. "To vent the gas, engineers punched holes all through the mine, all offering access to the backwoods and all serving as escape hatches for the spirits. Even with the mine breach closed, they can come and go as they please."

"Oh." Miss Gwyn's frown remained as she turned and stared at Sam's black eye. "But tell me this, if they're only going after the descendents of the men who originally hunted them, why did they attack you? Your family played no role in their fate."

Sam ran his fingers over his bruised eye. "No, but we were carrying guns and we were hunting them in that mine. Once we pulled the trigger, it was no big stretch to add us to their hit list."

Miss Gwyn looked troubled by that piece of information. "So how do you stop them from hurting you, or anyone else?"

Dean smiled. "We head back to the mine, we find their remains, and destroy them."

**Continued in Chapter 3...**


	3. Chapter 3

**SUMMARY:** _Casefic. There's something out there in the dark, ripping its victims apart – and now it has Sam and Dean in its sights.._

**SPOILERS:** _Set Season 4-ish. A casefic which takes place in-between canon hunts._

**DISCLAIMER:**_ The characters of Supernatural belong to Eric Kripke & Co. I am playing in their sandbox, with their toys, with much gratitude._

**RATING:**_ T for some swearing._

**WORD COUNT:**_ 27K_

**GENRE:**_ Gen/Hurt-Comfort/Adventure_

**Stay in the Light **

**Chapter 3**

"This is a bad idea, fellas." Gus, the mine foreman, shook his head as he looked at Sam's battered face. "You've already been hurt once. It's not safe in there."

"Tell that to mayor. He threatened to get us fired if we don't find the source of this leak and stop it up ASAP." Like his brother, Dean was once again dressed in Swancott orange coveralls and a mining helmet.

"The mayor's an ass." Gus glanced worriedly from Sam to Dean. "And I've told him as much to his face many times. Why the hell's he so bent out of shape about this mine, anyway?"

Dean grinned as he picked up his air tanks. "Don't know, don't care. Just know we need to get the job done."

Gus still didn't look convinced. "I want you out of there ASAP. We're not pushing the envelope." He tapped the tanks Dean carried. "And like I said before-"

"Keep an eye on the gauges." Dean grinned. "Trust me, we're not staying any longer than we have to."

Sam zipped up his coveralls and smiled tightly. "We appreciate your concern, Gus but, like Dean said, we've got a job to do. And the sooner we find the source of that leak and set the explosives, the sooner the mayor is off all our backs."

Gus stared at the brothers for a moment, then crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay, here's the deal. I want a check in by radio every 15 minutes, letting me know you're okay and where you are. I'll have someone up here monitoring those check-ins, and they'll keep monitoring until we see your two ugly mugs rolling out of the main tunnel on my mantrip. Got it?"

"Got it," the brothers answered in unison.

Just under an hour later, Sam and Dean were entering the old mine for the second time. For this trip, they'd each clipped battery-powered lights to the back of their collars and the back of their belts, the beams shining behind them as they walked, hopefully making it more difficult for the spirits to launch a sneak attack. In addition to the small duffels over their shoulders holding their own equipment and an extra air tank each, they also carried the jury-rigged air rifles.

As they walked Sam glanced at Dean's duffel. "You okay with the explosives? I mean, we do this wrong, we're gonna bring the mountain down on top of us."

Dean grinned. "We're not gonna do it wrong. I can't wait to flip the switch."

Sam shook his head. "You're having way more fun with this than you should be."

Dean's grin widened. "A man needs a little fun, Sammy. We're about to spend all day crawling around in a dusty old mine, looking for spirits who want to rip our throats out. This at least gives me something to look forward to." He shook his head when he scanned the tunnel ahead and the enormity of the mine hit home. "Damn, there's a lot of ground to cover. A lot of hidey holes for our not-so-friendly spirits."

"We've safely got seven or eight hours of air, nine if we push it, but we could split up – cover twice the real estate in half the time," Sam offered, although he knew what Dean's response would be before the words left his lips. He wasn't disappointed.

"Screw that." Dean started walking, finger twitching on the trigger of his gun. "We stick together. I want your sorry ass watching mine while I watch yours."

Sam grinned. "Keep saying stuff like that and you'll get the miners talking."

"Shut up." Dean shot a glare over his shoulder. "Just keep your eyes peeled. The faster we see daylight, the happier I'll be."

After almost three hours, they'd covered just under half the mine. They were dirty, sweaty, and frustrated but had still seen no sign of the spirits, or their remains.

Sam checked his gas detector, then, seeing the levels were in the safe zone, pulled off his helmet, shoved up his mask and took a long drink from a bottle of water he'd snagged from his duffel. "Last time they came after us pretty damn quick, now they're no shows? What gives?"

"We've got more light," Dean glanced down at his air rifle, "and I'm guessing we're the first ones in a long time to shoot 'em with something that stings."

Sam glanced behind him. "Or they could be lying in wait for us somewhere."

Dean snorted. "Thank you, Mary Sunshine. If you— Bingo! Suspect number one, ten o'clock."

Sam's heart started racing as he spun around and followed Dean's directive. But it wasn't a spirit Dean had seen. It was a skeleton slumped against the tunnel wall on their left, small, tattered pieces of cloth that had once been clothes stuck to its bones.

Dean, pulling supplies from his duffel, frowned at his brother. "Dude, get the lead out. Clock's ticking. You take care of Skeletor, I'll take care of the rest."

Sam yanked down his mask and replaced his helmet. "Go to town, demolition man. Just don't blow us up in the process."

The methane gas in the mine made a simple salt and burn impossible. The brothers had considered loading up the bones and hauling them to the surface to burn later but that just gave the spirits more time to wreak havoc, and there was always the risk of leaving a piece, however small, behind.

But a controlled explosion to burn off the methane gave them the perfect cover. Once the bones were salted and soaked in kerosene, Dean could rig a two-stage explosion, the first to ignite the gas and vaporize the bones, the second to bring the tunnel down and seal anything that may survive the explosion inside the mountain for good.

Sam watched Dean set the explosives. "Does it ever scare you, even a little, the stuff we know how to do? How many ways we know to kill things?"

"We know our jobs, Sammy. That's all." Dean pressed a small clump of explosive onto a support beam. "Check in with Gus and then let's move. We've still got two more of these pricks to find."

Almost two hours later and several tunnels over they found the second two skeletons, slumped against opposite walls about ten feet from each other. Again, Sam salted and soaked the remains while Dean rigged the explosives.

As Dean worked, the faceplate of his mask fogged up. He froze momentarily, before realizing sweat, not the spirits' arrival, had caused the problem. "Son of a bitch." He checked the methane detector on his belt; it read in the low range. With that reassurance, he pulled off his mask and helmet, gratefully swiping his arm across his face to wipe away the sweat.

Sam's eyes widened when he saw his brother without his mask. "Dean?"

"Can't see a freaking thing. And when you're working with explosives, that ain't good." Unhindered by the mask, Dean quickly rigged the charges and set the timer. "There. All done."

"Good." Sam checked the gauge for his breathing gear, which registered in the warning zone. "Let's change out the tanks and get the hell outta here." He scanned the tunnel suspiciously as he unclipped the harness. "Why does it feel like not seeing the spirits is bad…very bad?"

"'Cause you're a suspicious bastard. And I taught you everything you know." Dean started to unbuckle the straps holding his air tanks in place but stopped, sniffing the air suspiciously.

Sam hauled his spare tank from his duffel, then frowned when he realized Dean was staring down the tunnel. "What?"

"Hold on." Dean turned his head and sniffed again. "The air here…it smells different."

Sam's frown deepened as he quickly checked his gas detector. "Dude, you know methane's odorless. It's—"

"That's not it." Dean shook his head; they'd lifted their masks a few times over the course of the day to take a drink and the air in the mine had a telltale, musty smell. "The air here…it's fresher.

Sam glanced around. "Maybe we're near a vent."

"Maybe." Dean dropped his near-empty tanks on the ground, then walked to where the tunnel ended in a T-junction. He nodded as he glanced right. "Or it could be that."

"What?" Sam slipped the single, full tank on his back and fastened the straps as he followed Dean. He rounded the corner to see his brother standing in front of a pile of rubble and looking up. Part of the mountain had collapsed into the tunnel, creating an opening to the outside high above them. A small patch of bright sunlight pushed its way through the breach into the mine, offering a welcome respite from the endless sea of black they'd spent the day in.

Dean squinted up at the breach. "One question, though. If the spirits can't stand the light, how are they wandering around up there? I mean, that sunlight hurts my eyes right now and we've been down here less than a day."

As if in answer to his question, the light from above dimmed as a cloud passed over the sun.

Sam shrugged. "I'll bet that if we got hold of the weather reports from the days the four men were killed, the words 'heavy cloud cover' would be in them somewhere. And if the spirits stuck to the shadows…" He reached into his duffel. "Anyway, let's make sure there are no more field trips before we get a chance to blow this place up."

Dean watched as his brother laid down a thick line of salt across the tunnel, along each wall and in front of the pile of rubble, sealing off the "escape hatch" from the spirits. "Part of me says you're being overly anal about this but given what these bastards have done, go for it."

As he poured the salt, Sam's stomach roiled when he thought about how long the miners had been trapped in the original cave-in, what they'd had to endure. And then, against all odds, they'd escaped, only to be shunned by those they'd once called family and friends. He closed his eyes as his stomach did another somersault.

"Dude, if you're gonna puke, take your mask off first."

Dean's jibe pulled him back to the present. "I'm fine." Sam dropped the salt canister back into his duffel and rolled his eyes at Dean's disbelieving expression. "Just change your damn tank so we can go."

"Roger that." Dean made short work of hooking up the fresh tank, then slung his duffel over his shoulder and quickly slid his mask and helmet back into place. "After you, Sammy. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can flip the switch and get rid of these bastards for good."

"Amen to that." Sam glanced around suspiciously.

"What?"

"It's like I said before, the spirits, they're too damn quiet." Sam shook his head. "I don't like it."

"That makes two of us." Dean's grip tightened on his rifle as he glanced back at the rubble pile, then up at the breach. "Wanna try this exit." He tilted his head up. "It's, what? A twenty-five, thirty-foot climb?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. That's three stories of unstable rubble. And we have no climbing gear and no freaking clue where it comes out." He pulled the map of the mine from his pocket and dragged his finger in a double-dogleg up the middle. "We covered a lot more ground to get here than we need to get back. We go this way, it should get us back to the Swancott mine in about thirty minutes."

Dean again glanced up at the tempting quick exit but slowly shook his head. "If we'd brought the rope…maybe. But yeah, we go through the tunnels." He turned to Sam and raised his rifle. "Double-time?"

Sam nodded and the brothers set off at a jog. They weren't exactly speedy given all the gear they were wearing but had covered about a third of their route when Sam turned a corner and skidded to a halt. Dean almost ran into him, but quickly saw the reason his brother had slammed on the brakes. Ahead of them, just within the reach of their helmet lamps, the three spirits stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the tunnel.

"Son of a…." Dean's focus stayed locked on the spirits as he gripped the air rifle in frustration, cursing the weapon's limited range.

Sam had edged a little closer to Dean, their shoulders almost bumping. "They're gonna have to move. As soon as our lights hit them—"

"Then what's their game?" Dean's finger twitched on the trigger. "They're up to something."

"Yeah, but what?"

"Only one way to find out." Dean raised his rifle and stalked forward. Sam quickly fell in step beside him.

As the brothers began moving, two of the spirits each stepped forward and raised their arms, for the first time revealing large, well-used pickaxes, and swung them with practised ease at the old wooden railroad ties that shored up the tunnel walls.

Sam and Dean lifted their rifles and fired, the two axe-wielding spirits now in range, and the ghosts dissipated as the shots found their mark, but not before their axes slammed into the tunnel supports. Dust began to rain down from the ceiling, the sound of splintering wood slowly replaced by a thunderous rumble. As Dean shifted his aim and blasted the third spirit, the two beams cleaved by the axes toppled into the tunnel. By the time the ghost vanished, still smiling coldly as he disappeared, the shower of dirt and dust tumbling into the mine had become an avalanche.

It was a domino effect. Wall and ceiling beams fell, pulling with them rocks and dirt which, in turn, pulled down more beams, rapidly filling in the tunnel.

Sam and Dean were already moving backwards, away from the advancing debris, when there was a sickening crack right above them. Instinctively, Sam spun to his left and shoved Dean out of the way just as the tinder dry roof truss gave way, dumping timber, rocks and dirt onto Sam.

The rumble of the tunnel collapse died out as quickly as it began, but it left a sea of debris in its wake and the brothers buried in the midst of it.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Dean jolted awake and scowled at his hazy vision as he forced open his eyes. It took a moment for his brain to catch up and realize the problem wasn't with his eyes but with the thick layer of dust that coated the breathing mask covering his face.

"Son of a bitch." He was lying on his stomach, the side of his face pressed into the ground. He swiped a hand over his mask and glanced around as he frantically tried to piece together why he felt like he'd been through the spin cycle in one of those industrial washing machines at the laundromat.

Mine. Spirits. Cave-in.

"Damn it to hell." He coughed, his voice rough. "Sammy, you good?" He stilled when there was no response. "Sam?"

When there was still no answer, he tried to push himself up but a heavy weight on his back pinned him in place. His head snapped around and his struggles intensified, ready to fight whoever was holding him down, but there was no one there. The lamp from his helmet, sitting upside down beside him on the ground, lit up a splintered railroad tie that lay across his legs and back, each end buried in a pile of rubble. Dean reached behind him, grunting at the awkward angle, and gave it a shove. It shifted only a little, but it was enough that he suddenly had room to move his legs and drag himself slowly forward and out from under the beam. "Sam? Answer me, damn it. How you doing?"

He rolled over and sat up with a groan, grabbing his helmet and placing it back on his head. Dean wiped more dirt from his mask, then used the helmet lamp to scan the pitch-black mine tunnel. He froze when he saw the pile of rubble in front of him—and his brother buried in the middle of it.

Only Sam's head and arm were visible, his head hanging forward, his face hidden behind his mask and a curtain of dust-covered hair. The bright orange of his coverall sleeve stood out in stark relief against the browns and grays of the debris. His helmet had also been knocked from his head and sat upside down at the base of the rubble pile. A large rock had landed inside it, tilting it upward so the beam of the helmet lamp hit Sam squarely in the face in a kind of macabre spotlight.

"Sammy?" Dean scrambled to his feet and stumbled over the debris-strewn floor to get to his brother. His stomach churned, his heart trying to punch its way out of his chest because…because Sam looked dead.

Dean sank down onto the rubble and pressed his fingers against Sam's carotid artery. His brother's skin was cool but not cold to the touch, and beneath it a pulse beat steadily. But any relief he felt from that discovery was tempered by the fact that Sam was still unconscious and trapped under a ton of rubble. Dean carefully tilted up his brother's head; his stomach lurched when he saw that Sam's mask had taken a blow in the cave-in, the spider web of cracks making the Plexiglas opaque. He gently pulled off the mask to find Sam's eyes closed and the gash on his temple from their earlier clash with the spirits reopened, sending fresh blood running down his nose and cheek.

Practised hands quickly triaged Sam. Dean grimaced when he found a large lump on the back of his brother's skull, the hair covering it sticky with blood. "Damn it, Sammy. You're a mess." He cursed again when he went to replace the oxygen mask and discovered the tube connecting the mask to the air tank on Sam's back had been severed.

A quick glance at his gas detector told Dean methane was present but levels were low. Dean pulled off his own helmet and mask and quickly secured the mask onto Sam before shrugging off the harness holding his air cylinder and wedging it in the rocks at his brother's side."

Unencumbered by the breathing gear, Dean moved more easily as he tackled the bigger problem of getting Sam free. He first pulled smaller rocks away from his brother, then tried to lift the broken beam than ran diagonally across Sam's chest from left shoulder to waist. It wouldn't budge. Dean changed angles and tried again but there was still no give.

"Son of a bitch." Dean spat out dirt and dust he'd inhaled, then scrambled up the rubble pile beside Sam, sat down, and wedged both feet against the beam, grunting loudly as he pushed. The support stayed stubbornly in place.

Dean studied the beam as he caught his breath. Both ends seemed to be trapped under large, heavy pieces of rock that rested on smaller pieces of rubble. The problem was that if he pulled out the smaller pieces and the larger boulders dropped, the beam would drop, too, likely crushing Sam. He scrubbed a hand down his face: he needed something to lever up the beam and keep it supported and off Sam while he worked the rocks loose.

Dean shivered as a blast of cold air blew through the tunnel, his skin pebbling with goose bumps. He glanced around, immediately on edge. "I think our friends are back, Sammy." He rechecked Sam's pulse—it was still steady—pushed himself to his feet, then scanned the tunnel again, this time spotting the strap of his duffel sticking out from under a pile of dirt. "What say we spook-proof this place while I dig you out, huh? Last thing we need is those bastards sneaking up on us."

He crossed quickly to his duffel, unzipped it and pulled out the lantern. He flipped the switch and exhaled gratefully when it turned on. Glancing up, he spotted a bent nail protruding from the broken beam above Sam's head, and stretched up to hang the lantern from it, the light pooling around his brother.

He then grabbed a canister of salt and laid down a thick line across the open tunnel behind them, along each of the walls and around Sam. As he poured the salt, Dean flipped the switch on his radio to transmit to the surface. "Mayday, mayday. We have a cave-in in the old mine with a man trapped. Please respond." He punched the tunnel wall in frustration when the only reply was static. He tried again. "I repeat, we have a cave-in in the old mine with a man trapped. We need rescue personnel and medical assistance. Access from Swancott is cut off but there's a surface breach about two klicks east of our location. You can enter the mine there. Respond, damn it."

Again, there was nothing but static. "Son of a bitch. Gus, I'm holding you to your word. We're way overdue for a check-in so I hope you're cursing a blue streak at us right now. And rallying the cavalry."

As he glanced down, a pair of unfocused hazel eyes stared back at him from behind the facemask. "Hey, 'bout time you woke up."

Sam blinked slowly, screwing up his face as he lifted his head. "Ow."

Dean winced in sympathy as he dropped beside Sam and reached into their duffel. "_Ow_, huh? Given the circumstances, I was expecting something with at least four letters."

"What—?" Sam coughed as he glanced around, his eyes widening as the fog of unconsciousness cleared. "What the—?" Panic quickly set in as he began pushing desperately at the beam across his chest. "Dean, get me out. Get this off—"

"Hey, hey, hey…." Dean grabbed Sam's hand and trapped it inside his fist. "Calm down." He waited 'til his brother looked up at him, eyes wide. "Dude, you're stuck pretty good. You freaking out's not gonna help matters. Now chill. I'll get you out. You've got my word on that."

Sam stared at Dean for a long moment, then closed his eyes, nodded, and swallowed, willing himself to calm down. His eyes stayed closed until his rapid breathing had slowed to almost normal. He coughed, then opened his eyes to find Dean holding a bottle of water in front of him.

Mindful of the reopened cut, Dean slid Sam's mask onto the top of his head. "Drink some of this, but take it slow."

Sam nodded, taking the bottle and swallowing a small mouthful. "How long…how long was I out?"

Dean shook his head. "Not long. Just enough for me to light up this place and lay down some salt, make sure our friends don't crash the rescue party."

Sam was studying Dean, now. "What about you? Y'okay?"

"M'fine, thanks to you shoving me out of the way." Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam. "'Course, I'd be more impressed if you'd got your own sorry ass clear at the same time."

Sam snorted softly. "Me too. You call for help?"

Dean nodded. "Made a 911 call on the radio but dunno whether it got through." He turned back to Sam and pulled his brother's breathing mask back into place. "Now talk to me. I need a self-diagnostic."

"Dude, I'm not a car." Sam frowned at Dean. "And where's your mask?"

Dean grinned. "On your face." He pointed to the smashed mask on the tunnel floor at the base of the rubble pile. "Yours was K.I.A. Gave its life to save your ugly mug."

Sam ignored the jibe, his worried expression deepening as he stared at the smashed mask. "You need one…the gas."

"Relax." Dean tapped the gas detector on his belt as he began picking up pieces of debris in search of one that would help free Sam. "Barely any gas here. I'm fine. Now don't change the subject. Most of you's hidden from me. I need to know if anything feels…off."

"Head hurts…little hard to breathe…can't move." Sam winced behind the mask. "Other than that, I'm awesome."

Dean frowned. "What about your left arm? Your legs?"

Sam sighed. "Arm feels kinda pinched, like it's in a vise."

"Can you move your fingers?"

Sam closed his eyes. "A little." He bit his lip as his eyes slid open and he looked up at Dean. "Legs are kinda numb."

Dean swallowed against a wave of nausea and quickly schooled his features. "Try moving your toes." He waited expectantly. "Well? Can you?"

"Yeah." Sam gave a terse nod. "Hurts, but yeah."

"Hurting's good." Dean's internal panic dropped a notch at that piece of information. "That means the spark plugs are still firing and the wiring's intact."

Sam winced again as he tried to move. "Look, just so we're clear, you get me out of this mess, I want a doctor, not a mechanic."

Dean grinned. "Look at that, snark's intact, too. Another good sign."

Sam glanced around. "The spirits. You seen 'em since…since _this_ happened?"

Dean shook his head. "Not since I came to."

Sam looked up at Dean. "I think I know why they haven't attacked us."

Dean raised an eyebrow as he dragged a broken beam toward Sam. "They dropped half the mountain on you, Sammy. I think that qualifies as an _attack_."

"I mean like the others." Sam watched as Dean wedged the piece of wood under the beam lying across his chest. "I think this is what they had in mind. To trap us in here, let us starve to death…slowly go crazy. Just like they did."

Dean snorted. "Well, screw that plan. We're both getting out and when you're patched up, and their bones are torched, we're getting a six-pack and a dozen of Molly's honeybuns—each—to celebrate." Anger twisted his gut as he looked down at his trapped brother. "And after what they did to you, I'm not gonna feel guilty about stuffing my face. Not even a little bit."

Sam shot a look down the tunnel then turned to Dean. "You need to go."

"Shut up." Dean rammed another broken beam under the piece of wood trapping Sam. "We'll both go, just as soon as I get you out."

"No, Dean. Now." Sam kept his voice low. "Those spirits worked this mine and they've been here a long time. They know all its weak points. Right now, you can still get out." He was wheezing audibly. "Backtrack to that tunnel collapse that opens to the surface and climb out. If you wait, if they bring down another tunnel, then we really will be trapped in here."

"Stop talking. And I told you, we go out together. End of story." Dean nodded, satisfied, as he studied the placement of the supports. "Okay, that should hold up the beam that's pinning you while I move the rocks around. I'll have you free in no time."

Dean coughed, then began pulling out rocks, tossing them behind him as he worked. A smile started to form when he moved one rock and revealed a patch of dirty orange coverall. It was Sam's leg. But the smile disappeared almost instantly at the sound of a rumble from within the debris. Before he could do anything to stop it, the rubble shifted, the beam pinning his brother slid sideways and Sam screamed out in pain.

"Son of a bitch." Dean lifted both hands, suddenly afraid that if he moved another piece he'd further hurt his brother. "Sammy?"

Sam's eyes were still screwed closed but he gave Dean a shaky thumbs up. "M'okay…m'okay."

"Like hell you are." Dean glared at the debris. The wooden braces were still holding; nothing should've moved. There had to be some piece he couldn't see that was acting as a linchpin. "Damn it, I'm sorry. I—"

"Not your fault." Sam's eyes were open now. "But you gotta go, Dean. Now."

Dean's stomach lurched because Sam was right. He was working blind, and just as likely to crush his brother as free him. To get him out safely, they needed more hands, more equipment. "Damn it to hell. I—"

"Dean." Sam waited until Dean turned to him. "You'll get me out. You always save my ass, right." He swallowed. "Here, take this…" Sam grabbed his mask and started to pull it off.

"Whoa, whoa…." Dean stopped him. "You leave that right where it is."

Sam shook his head. "The gas pockets—"

"I'm heading for fresh air," Dean said matter-of-factly as he replaced the mask on Sam's face. "Trail's well-marked. A quick sprint and I'll be in the clear. No worries."

Sam nodded but looked far from convinced. He watched as Dean changed the batteries in the lantern, replaced it on its nail perch, and wedged the lights that had been on his collar and belt into the rocks on either side of Sam. His brother next reloaded his air rifle, then poured water on his bandanna, folded it in half diagonally and tied it over his mouth and nose. He grabbed his gun, gave Sam a two-fingered salute and turned to leave.

"Dean…before you go…." Sam swallowed. "Gimme my gun."

Dean's eyes widened over the bandanna. "Your air rifle's buried."

Sam shook his head. "My real gun, from the duffel. I want it for me, not the spirits. If something goes wrong, and you can't get back, I'm not gonna let those things get me. I'm not gonna waste away down here. Gimme my gun so—"

"No." Dean crouched down in front of Sam. "It won't come to that, Sammy. I promise you_." _He pulled down the bandanna, cupped his hand at the back of Sam's head and looked him straight in the eye, their faces inches apart._ "_Just… keep it together. The light'll protect you, and I'll be back with help as soon as I can."

He sat back on his haunches and held up his hand.

Sam grabbed it. "Be careful. That's not an easy climb. You said so yourself."

Dean tapped his fist against Sam's shoulder, then pulled up the bandanna and grabbed his gun. "I was talking about for you. That growth spurt at fifteen really threw off your center of gravity. Me? Like a cat." He stood up and gave a quick nod. "Hang tight. I'll be back before you know it."

With that, Dean turned, sprinted down the tunnel and was gone.

_**Continued in Chapter 4...**_


	4. Chapter 4

**SUMMARY:** _Casefic. There's something out there in the dark, ripping its victims apart – and now it has Sam and Dean in its sights.._

**SPOILERS:** _Set Season 4-ish. A casefic which takes place in-between canon hunts._

**DISCLAIMER:**_ The characters of Supernatural belong to Eric Kripke & Co. I am playing in their sandbox, with their toys, with much gratitude._

**RATING:**_ T for some swearing._

**WORD COUNT:**_ 27K_

**GENRE:**_ Gen/Hurt-Comfort/Adventure_

**Stay in the Light**

**Chapter 4**

Sam had passed out at some point, and when he came to, the spirits were back.

A blast of wind howling through the tunnel, the same tunnel Dean had disappeared down just minutes—or was it hours?—ago announced their arrival.

As the wind disappeared, the mine filled with the creaks and groans of old timber mixed with the squeak of metal. Sam opened his eyes to see the light swinging wildly around him. His gaze snapped upwards and he watched helplessly as the lantern rocked back and forth on the bent nail in the beam above him, slowly, gradually inching its way off.

The gust of wind had also obliterated the salt line Dean had laid down across the tunnel, the advance guard of Sam's defenses. Now, the dead miners were targeting the lantern that provided his protective cocoon of light.

Sam's breathing had been tight before the spirits returned. Now, his rapid, shallow breaths were making him lightheaded. He forced himself to calm down. Dean would be back with help soon; he just had to hold on until then.

He could barely move, let alone fight these spirits, but there was one thing he could do. Dean would laugh at him for trying, but he could talk to them.

"Listen. I know who you are." Sam's voice was raw, muffled behind his mask and lacking its usual power. He cleared his throat. "What happened to you, it's not right. You should never have been left behind. Should never have been sealed in here."

The wind died down suddenly, the squeak of the lantern rocking back and forth on the nail the only sound breaking the silence.

Sam squinted into the darkness beyond the lantern's light. "If you let us, we can help you…help you leave this place." He thought it best to leave out where they might be going to.

"No one escapes this mine." As the lantern stilled, a deep, rumbling laughter took the place of the metallic squeak. "Besides, no one wants to help a freak."

"That's not true." Sam swallowed. "Trust me, I know what it's like to be…to be different."

"Do you?" This was a second voice, slightly higher pitched and carrying a century and a half of bitterness. "Do you know what it's like to be left in the dark for days, for weeks…. To be forced to eat vermin and insects…. To finally grow so hungry, so desperate to survive, you'd lower yourself to eating the bodies of men you used to work side by side with, knowing full well God will never forgive you for it? That you'll never forgive yourself?"

A chill ran through Sam and his stomach lurched. That guilt, warped and magnified over time, was at the root of much of these spirits' fury. "No. No one will ever truly understand what you went through in this mine. But killing innocent people isn't the answer."

"Innocent?" It was the first voice again, now full of scorn. "Not one of the lives we've taken was innocent. In any way."

"We took an oath when we started in this mine." This was a third voice, deep and lilting with the hint of an accent, most likely Welsh. "That we'd always have each other's back. They broke that promise once when they abandoned us. Broke it again when they shunned us for being…different."

The tunnel filled with the cruel laughter of the first spirit. "Then they hunted us for being monsters they themselves created."

"They were wrong." Sam's voice was quiet. "But when the rescue was called off, the Union Army was advancing and they were ordered to leave. They had no way of knowing you were still alive. If they had…." He shook his head. "I'm sure they would have disobeyed orders to stay and get you out. They were your friends."

All three spirits laughed at that, and the quiet, mirthless laughter made Sam's blood run cold.

"Yes. Such good friends that when we finally crawled out of this hell and made our way home, they chased us away…from our families, from our lives…."

"Told us we were abominations, an affront to God himself. Then sealed us back in the very mine that turned us into the monsters we are."

Sam caught a glimpse of this miner in the shadows to his left as the spirit moved closer.

That spirit smiled coldly. "And soon you'll know what it's like. We'll wait, and we'll watch as hunger and madness consume you. And only then, right before the end, will you truly understand what we went through."

A short blast of wind punched through the tunnel, finally succeeding in knocking the lantern from its perch above Sam. His eyes widened as it fell, seemingly in slow motion. It shattered as it hit the ground, its light extinguished, plunging most of the tunnel into darkness. The only illumination left was from Sam's helmet lamp and the two battery-powered lights Dean had wedged into the rocks on either side of him.

Sam's breathing sped up, his shallow exhales audible in the eerie silence. He turned his head slowly, seeing the spirits shield their eyes and back up each time they were hit with the light from his helmet lamp. "Look, what happened to you wasn't right, but what you're doing isn't right either. These people you're killing, they're _not _responsible for your deaths."

"Yes, they are."

"No, they're not." Sam swallowed. He knew that spirits were often unaware of the passage of time, that what seemed like days to them was often centuries. "You died more than a hundred and fifty years ago. The men who abandoned you, who sealed you in here, they're long dead, likely paying for what they did in their own special hell right now."

"A hundred and fifty years..." This was from the deep-voiced miner who suddenly seemed a lot less sure of himself.

Sam nodded slowly, wincing as the movement amped up his headache. "Yes. The men coming into these mines, those you've been attacking on South Mountain, they're relatives of the men who hunted you but they're four or five generations removed. You can't punish them for something their ancestors did long before they were born."

There was a soft chuckle from the Welsh-accented spirit. "Then we should punish them for abandoning you. Your partner is gone. He left you here to die. If what you say is true, if all these years have passed, then men have still learned little. You don't abandon your brothers when they're in trouble."

Sam was fighting to hold back his anger. "No one abandoned me. Dean…. He'll be back."

"No, he won't. He's dead."

The crushing pressure now across Sam's chest had nothing to do with the weight resting on it. He glared at the voice in the dark. "No. You're lying."

"He fell."

That devastating statement, flat and matter-of-fact, came from his right. Sam's head snapped around, just in time to see the light wedged in the rocks there go flying and the spirit beside it vanish.

A different voice came from his left as that light, too, was knocked aside. "We followed him. He thought he could escape, but he didn't. He climbed and he fell. No one escapes this mine."

"That's not true." Sam was fighting the need to throw up. "That's not true." He grunted when a blow to the side of the head knocked off his helmet and sent it tumbling down the rock pile where it swung back and forth from the cable attaching it to the light's battery pack.

As the light pendulumed through the tunnel, he caught glimpses of the three spirits staring at him, until something behind them caught their attention.

Simultaneously, all three snapped their heads around to stare up the tunnel. Sam had no idea what they were seeing or hearing; he saw and heard nothing. Two of the spirits flickered and vanished, while the third vanished then reappeared briefly at his side — just long enough to grab the cable from his helmet and yank it from the battery pack, plunging the tunnel into total darkness.

Sam shuddered as the deep-voiced spirit whispered in his ear. "No one escapes. No one."

**xxxXXXxxx**

Dean was floating. He opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the sky, the small patch of gray above him getting closer and closer.

Why the hell was he floating? He frowned, swaying gently in the air currents as they lifted him even higher.

He vaguely remembered trying to climb out of the mine and then falling, and then…. Son of a bitch. He was dead. The fall had done him in.

He'd visualized all sorts of ways of dying—kinda came with the job—and, once in a while, he'd even thought about what might happen after he died. But _this_? This sure as hell wasn't it. Floating gently up into the Great Beyond? That was way too Hallmark for a Winchester. Not to mention, he'd never been totally convinced that, when his time came, he'd be riding the _Up _elevator.

There was a metal clang and the back of his head hit something hard when he was jostled from side-to-side. He grunted because, damn it, it hurt—and that just seemed…wrong. If a chubby angel in a diaper was driving this bus, he needed his freaking license revoked.

"_Son of a bitch, keep it straight. Doesn't this god damn thing move any faster?_"

Okay. Dean's frown deepened as the gruff male voice cut through the Category Five migraine building inside his head. Cherubs cussed a little more than he expected, too.

His stomach lurched when he started to slowly spin around, and then rocked violently for a moment.

"_Keep it steady, keep it steady…. Swing it this way, bit more, bit more. And…stop…. Now down, down…. Hold it. That's good. We got him. Let's get him out."_

Suddenly, there were dark shapes all around him, lifting him up, jostling him around for a few moments, and then lowering him down. He couldn't see the sky anymore, wasn't floating anymore. There was solid ground beneath him. "Guess you guys figured out I was on the wrong bus, huh?" he mumbled. He wanted to laugh, but his stomach had other ideas and he retched violently.

The dark shapes were back. "_Quick, let's roll him_."

Hands were suddenly on his shoulders, hips, and legs, rolling him onto his side. Just in time, too. He was pretty sure he threw up everything he'd eaten since entering the state of Tennessee three days earlier, and most of the roadside diner chow from the drive through Kentucky before that. Dry heaves followed before he was gently rolled onto his back, exhausted, breathing heavily and feeling like his head was about to explode.

He zoned out for a bit, coming back to awareness when a cool cloth was gently wiped over his mouth, face, and neck.

"_Relax. You're safe now. We're gonna take care of you."_

The last voice was a woman's, and she sounded hot. Dean pulled his eyes open, blinking to force them to focus, something so far they'd stubbornly refused to do.

"It's okay, Dean. I'm gonna put a mask over your face. Don't fight it. Just relax and breathe deeply."

Mask? Dean squeezed his eyes closed again and, this time, when he opened them, his vision slid into focus. The woman leaning over him had long reddish-brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, blue eyes, and the kind of smile that could suck him in from the far side of a crowded bar. The blue jacket and stethoscope around her neck threw him though. "You're no angel."

She laughed. "No, a few too many sins on my résumé for that job." She pressed a plastic mask over Dean's mouth and nose, looping the strap behind his head, and gently pulled his hand away when he reached up reflexively to pull it off. "No. Keep that on. W_e _need to get your oxygen levels back up_._"

Dean frowned. Okay. He wasn't dead. If they were trying to fix his breathing, he wasn't en route to Heaven or Hell. That was a plus. But then where was he? As his vision cleared a bit more, he watched the angel — the paramedic — swab the inside of his elbow and then insert a needle into the vein there.

Her smile returned when she saw him watching her work. "I'm guessing you're feeling kinda crappy right now, huh? Head like you've been on a three-day bender?"

"Five days," Dean mumbled from behind the mask. "Minimum."

"Ouch." The paramedic nodded in sympathy. "That's methane for you. Chews up all the oxygen in your system, dehydrating you, messing with your head and giving you a killer headache in the process." She shook her head as she taped the needle in place on his arm. "In a mining town, we deal with it far more than we like, but," her smile returned as she unfolded a length of tubing and inserted the needle at one end into an IV bag of clear liquid and the needle at the other into the catheter in Dean's arm, "it also means we're really good at treating it. We'll have you feeling better in no time."

Dean rolled his head to the side and tried to take in the scene playing out before him. It took him a moment to figure things out, given he was looking at the world sideways, but he was in the woods and there were a lot of men wandering around in front of him wearing orange coveralls.

"Donna, is he awake enough that I can talk to him?"

Dean recognized the gruff male voice behind him. It was Gus, the mine foreman. He rolled his head back to see Gus standing beside the paramedic—Donna—as she emptied the contents of a syringe into Dean's IV line.

"He's in and out, but you can try."

Gus crouched down beside Dean, his ruddy face creasing with his smile. "Hey, son, you back with us?"

Dean nodded, still fighting to keep his eyes open. "M'okay."

Gus gave Dean's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Look, I know first-hand what methane poisoning feels like, so I know how hard it is for you to focus right now, but we really need your help."

Dean nodded. He needed Gus's help, too, because… because…. Damn it. He screwed his eyes closed. The reason was just beyond the reach of his memory.

"We got your Mayday message. Well, parts of it, at least." Gus glanced to his right. "We thought we'd heard wrong when you told us there was a surface breach. Had no idea this was here. Must've collapsed after we drilled the vents." He turned back to Dean. "But what we never got was the location of today's cave-in. What tunnel was it, Dean? Where's Sam trapped?"

Sam.

Gus was still talking. "I've got men working with thermal imaging cameras close to your last known location, but we'll get to your brother a helluva lot faster if you can tell us…."

The fog in Dean's head lifted, shoved aside by an avalanche of images: The spirits swinging those damn pickaxes, the tunnel caving in, Sam shoving him out of the way—and Sam trapped in the rubble.

Dean's breathing escalated as he tried to untangle himself from the blanket covering him and sit up.

"Whoa. Where'd you think you're going?" Donna had her hands on his shoulders, trying to keep him down.

"Let me up, damn it," Dean growled. His voice was weak but he hoped the glare that accompanied the directive showed it wasn't open for negotiation. Once upright, though, vertigo took over and he tipped sideways. He landed with his face pressed against Donna's chest. Under different circumstances, it would be a nice—very nice—place to be, but with his head clearing, all he could think about was getting Sam out of that damn mine.

Donna sat him up and Gus was back at his side. Each of them slid an arm behind Dean's back, holding him steady.

The paramedic quickly had fingers pressed to his wrist, taking his pulse. "Keep your eyes closed until the dizziness passes."

Dean did. When his head cleared and he opened his eyes, both Donna and Gus were looking at him worriedly. He waved off their concern. "I'm good. Just sat up too fast." He grabbed Gus's arm. "We need to get Sam out of there, fast."

Gus nodded. "That's the plan. Look around. That's what all these men are here for."

Dean quickly scanned his surroundings. Now that he was upright, it was a lot easier to process. The hole that led into the mine was in front of him. The miners had rigged some kind of metal framework around it, at the top of which was a winch and a cable attached to a litter. That explained his earlier _floating_ sensation; they'd obviously lowered the litter into the mine, loaded him into it and winched him out of there.

"Dean?"

His attention snapped back to Gus.

Gus was leaning in close. "Where's Sam? What tunnel is he in?"

Dean stared at him, searching his memory. Unlike its modern counterpart, the tunnels of the old mine weren't numbered. His heart rate escalated as he tried to remember exactly where Sam was. "I can show you." He grabbed Gus's arm and started to pull himself up. "I'll know the way when I get down there."

"How 'bout you just tell me best you can." Gus gently but firmly pushed Dean back down. "You're in no shape for any more mine exploration. Did you mark the tunnels like I told you? If you did, we can just follow—"

"No." Dean glared at Gus. "You'll be going 'round in circles, wasting time when it's not safe. I'll take you to him."

"No offense, son, but most of these men…." Gus waved his arm at the miners gearing up around the site. "They've been working these mines as long as you've been alive. I've got two teams down there already, starting a grid search so—"

"No!" Dean grabbed Donna's hand as she was about to inject something else in his IV, and then turned to Gus. "You call those men and you tell them to turn on every damn light they've got with them." He swallowed. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, I know I sound crazy, but trust me when I say there is something down there that's dangerous, but it doesn't like the light.

"Please." Dean grabbed Gus's coverall sleeve. "I will try to explain once we've got Sammy out but, for now, for your men's sake, just take my word for it."

Gus hesitated, then nodded slowly. "All right, son. But I'll be looking forward to that story when everyone's safe and sound." He stood up, holding the radio to his mouth. "Dexter, Mason, I want it lit up like the Fourth of July down there. Apparently we've got some critter hiding in the tunnels and it don't like the light. And keep your eyes peeled. We've already got two men down. I don't want any more. Bailey, unload the generators. We're gonna need 'em to power the worklights when we find Sam."

Dean turned to Donna and pointed at the syringe she held. "Look, do what you want to me once we get Sam out, but I _am_ going back in that mine even if I have to deck you and jump in without a rope." He offered an apologetic smile when he saw her shocked expression. "Call me any names you want. Hell, press charges if you need to, but that's my brother down there. It killed me to leave him alone in the first place. I am _not_ gonna sit on my ass up here doing nothing while Gus's men search blindly. I can help, so I'm going back."

"You almost passed out just sitting up." Donna's tone was worried, not accusatory. "You really think you're up for another trek through that mine?"

Dean's jaw set stubbornly. "Doesn't matter whether I am or not. I'm going."

Gus was back at Dean's side now. He shook his head as he turned to Donna. "You wanna knock him out, I'll hold him down. Your call."

Despite his tough talk, Dean knew he was in no shape to win any fight, so he simply let his fear and worry for his brother show. "Please. I have to go."

Donna was reaching for a blood pressure cuff. "Give me five minutes to check you out properly. Any red flags, you stay put, otherwise okay. Deal?"

Dean nodded.

As Donna fastened the cuff around his arm, she glanced up at Gus. "If he goes, I go. You better find me some gear."

Dean watched as the paramedic inflated the blood pressure cuff. "When we get down there, you never mind me. You just help Sam."

Donna motioned to another paramedic standing next to an ATV with a red cross on the side, and climbing into a pair of Swancott coveralls. "That's my partner, Colin. He'll take care of Sam."

Gus frowned as he watched Donna listen to Dean's heart and lungs. "Well? We taking him with us or knocking him out?"

Donna hooked her stethoscope around her neck. "His vitals have improved but they're a long way from great." She smiled sympathetically at Dean. "But I've got a kid brother and I know how I'd feel if he was in trouble." She turned to Gus. "Let's get suited up."

**xxxXXXxxx**

Dean was back in the tunnel and standing, but it was taking a concerted effort to stay that way. He'd almost toppled over once already, simply reaching down to grab the air rifle he'd abandoned at the base of the rubble pile. The fact he was still upright was thanks to Donna grabbing the back of his jacket and locking an arm around his waist.

He nodded his thanks to the paramedic. "M'okay."

Donna relaxed her hold, once she was sure Dean was steady. Like Gus, her attention was locked on the gun Dean held.

"Look, I told you there's something down here, something nasty. If we run into it, this'll get rid of it without blowing us all up. You just gotta trust me on that." Dean turned and stared at the tunnel ahead. Thanks to Donna's care on the surface and the breathing mask he now wore, his head was a lot clearer than when he'd stumbled through the tunnels trying to get out. He closed his eyes and remembered Sam dragging his finger in a double dogleg along the map Gus had given them. He motioned ahead and took a shaky step forward. "Sam's this way."

"Hold up there, son." Gus grabbed his arm. "The two teams I've already got down here are on their way back, and if you want this place lit up like a night game at Yankee Stadium, we need the generators that are coming down now."

"But—"

"But nothing." Gus's voice was stern. "The safety of every man and woman down here is on me. We're gonna get your brother out, but we're gonna make sure we have everything to do it the right way."

It only took another five minutes to get the generators, and medical and rescue equipment down into the mine, and the other two teams to meet up with them, but to Dean it seemed liked hours. He was chomping at the bit by the time Gus gave him a nod, and he stumbled off down the tunnel.

They were a big group. Fifteen, according to the quick head count Dean had done just before they set off down the tunnel. And a big group made for an easy target if the spirits decided to play dirty, but they'd cross that bridge if they had to. The priority right now was Sam.

His brother had been alone in the mine for hours, and the knot in Dean's gut over having to leave him was getting larger with every passing minute. Sam had been in rough shape when he'd left and all this time spent stuck under the rubble, his air supply negligible, wasn't making him any better. And if the spirits had shown their ugly mugs again….

Dean stumbled when he tried to pick up the pace.

"Whoa, there." Donna's arm was back around his waist. "Slow and steady. That'll get you across the finish line."

Dean's jaw clenched but he kept pushing forward. The mine seemed to go on forever. Every time he turned a corner, he expected to see the lantern hanging from the beam, to see the rubble pile holding his brother captive, but every tunnel was empty. Doubt was creeping in, rapidly convincing him that he'd made a wrong turn, that he'd gotten the whole freaking rescue party lost until he turned one last corner.

This was tunnel. The cave-in was at the end of it.

But something was off. There was no light.

"Sammy!" Dean shook off Donna's support and launched into a stumbling run, his heart pounding not from exertion but from fear over what he might find. As the beam from his helmet lamp fell on the rock pile, his heart beat even faster.

Sam's head was tilted back and to the side, his breathing mask discarded. As Dean got close enough, it was quickly apparent that his brother's eyes were closed. His gaze traveled from the smashed lantern on the tunnel floor in front of the cave-in, to Sam's helmet on the ground, its light extinguished, too. Something had gone down.

"Sam?" Dean dropped to his knees, not entirely by choice, and grabbed his brother's arm. It took a moment to shove the coverall sleeve out of the way but he exhaled audibly when he found a slow pulse. "He's alive. He's still alive."

"Good. Then let's keep him that way." Donna had her hands on Dean's shoulders, gently trying to move him out of the way. "Dean, please. Give us room to work."

Dean nodded, but needed Donna's help to get back to his feet and move off to the side. There, he slid down the wall and sat on the ground, facing Sam. He waved off the paramedic's attempts to help. "M'fine. Go take care of Sammy."

It took another firm, "Go!" to convince her, but Donna nodded and quickly moved over to Sam.

The paramedics knelt either side of Sam. Colin quickly placed an oxygen mask over Sam's mouth and nose before checking his pupil response. Donna was cutting through the sleeve of Sam's coveralls, preparing to check his blood pressure and start an IV.

Beside the medics, two engineers were studying the rubble Sam was trapped under, working out the best—and safest—way to free him.

The hum of a generator filled Dean's ears a second before the tunnel was flooded with light. Dean screwed his eyes shut, then shielded them with his hand as he opened them slowly, giving them time to adjust to the sudden brilliant light. Shadows of the miners, dancing across the walls as they worked, disappeared a few seconds later as a second light on the opposite side of the tunnel was attached to the generator.

Dean nodded in approval. If the light hurt his eyes, no damn way were the spirits getting near them. His grip on his gun relaxed and he turned his attention back to Sam.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Sam came to with a start, his eyes slamming shut almost as soon as he opened them because the light was so bright.

"Relax. You're gonna be okay." The voice was female and judging by the gentle touch, so was the hand gripping his arm reassuringly. "Keep your eyes closed if the light hurts them. You've been down here a while so it might take a bit to get used to it. But we're gonna take good care of you and we're gonna get you out."

Sam shook his head. He didn't care if the light hurt; he'd been in the dark too damn long. He squinted at first, then slowly forced his eyes open. The light made them water, which made his vision blurry but, even with everything out of focus, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The tunnel was full of people dressed in Swancott orange coveralls. Two men to his right were placing some kind of hydraulic jack under the beam pinning him. Others were pulling rubble from around him. He must've been out for some time because the rescue effort was well under way.

He grabbed for the female paramedic's arm, trying to get his voice to work but she seemed to read his mind.

"The guy you have to thank for all this is over there." She gestured to Sam's left.

Sam rolled his head to the side and his eyes widened. Through all the miners milling about, he caught sight of Dean slumped against the tunnel wall. His brother had looked better when he'd rolled in from a bar after an all-night bender, but he most definitely wasn't dead.

Dean smiled tiredly, pushed himself up with a groan and staggered over to Sam. Between the paramedics and the engineers, he couldn't get closer than a few feet so he gave a small wave. "Told you I'd be back. Brought a few friends with me."

Sam stared up at Dean. "You look like crap."

Dean snorted. "Most folks would just say thank you. And by the way, you're not looking so hot, yourself."

Sam felt sick. "They said you were dead."

"Who did?" That question was from the male paramedic.

The flash of anger across Dean's face told Sam his brother knew exactly who he was talking about.

"You were dreaming, Sammy. I'm fine." Dean opened his arms wide in a look-at-me gesture, and almost overbalanced.

"Fine's a bit of stretch. You need to sit down." The female paramedic was on her feet quickly and guiding Dean to the side of the tunnel. She glanced back at Sam. "Your brother had a close call. He'll be fine, as long as he takes it easy for a bit."

Dean scowled as the paramedic steadied him as he slid down the wall to sit on the tunnel floor again. "Sam, this is Donna. As you may have noticed, she's kinda bossy."

"Sound like you two have a lot in common." Sam snorted softly, which started him coughing.

"Sam, I'm Colin." This was the male paramedic talking to him. "Let's keep the talking to a minimum for now, okay? We're gonna be ready to move you soon but I need to ask you a few questions first. Just nod, shake your head or stick to one-word answers when you can, alright?"

Sam screwed his eyes closed as he turned toward Colin, the lights and the noise around him suddenly overwhelming. The paramedic's words were distorted and unintelligible. He felt himself falling….

"Hey! Sam! Stay with me."

"Yeah." Sam blinked and Colin's worried face came into focus, the noise around him dropping back to normal levels. He swallowed. "Still here."

"Good. You have a headache?"

Sam gave a slight nod.

"What about pain elsewhere? Your left arm?"

Sam shrugged. "Feels…pinched."

"On a scale of one to ten?"

"Two-ish."

"What about your legs?"

Sam swallowed. "Sometimes numb, sometimes six or seven."

"Okay." Colin emptied the contents of a syringe into Sam's IV. "Any chest pain? Difficulty breathing?"

Sam gave a slight shrug.

"Back pain?"

Sam glanced down at his right arm which now bore a blood pressure cuff, the IV at his elbow, and a pulse oximeter clip on his finger. "You're worried about crush injuries, right?"

Colin glanced up as he worked. "You've been stuck in here a long time. We have to be cautious. But, right now, your blood pressure's good. We've got you started on fluids and a drug that should help keep things in check when we pull all this crap off you." He offered a small smile as he attached leads from the heart monitor to Sam's chest. "Let's not borrow trouble, huh? We'll get you out, then we'll see what's what."

At that moment, Gus clapped a hand on Colin's shoulder. "We're ready whenever you are. Just give us the word."

Colin nodded as he stood up. "He's set."

Gus returned the nod, then turned to his crew, "Okay, people. Let's do this."

**xxxXXXxxx**

"What's going on?" Dean looked past Donna to where Gus and Colin were now standing in front of Sam, talking.

Donna glanced over her shoulder after she finished taking Dean's pulse. "Looks like they're ready to get him out."

Dean's heart started racing and he grabbed Donna's sleeve. "How bad is it? And I want the truth."

"We're…cautiously optimistic." Donna held up her hand to cut off Dean as he was about to interrupt. "I know that sounds cliché but it's true. Sam's blood pressure and oxygen levels are good right now but—"

"You need to see what happens when you take all that weight off him." Dean swallowed. "He could still bottom out, right?"

"Don't go there." Donna squeezed his arm then pushed herself to her feet. "Whatever happens, we'll be right there to fight with him." She smiled, then returned to her partner's side.

"Okay, people. Let's do this."

As Gus issued that directive, his crew slipped into high gear like a well-oiled machine.

Hydraulic jacks had been placed under the beam on either side of Sam. As the miners used crowbars and brute strength to pull out the rocks and rubble holding it up, an engineer adjusted each jack so it continued to bear the weight and keep the beam off Sam.

Dean's attention was locked on the rescue efforts until a chill ripped through him and his breath frosted. His gaze snapped to the right and he stared past the worklights down the tunnel. There, just beyond the big lights, the spirits stood three abreast, watching the proceedings.

"Son of a bitch." Dean's curse came with the realization that his gun was still on the far side of the tunnel. He was pushing himself up to retrieve it when it hit him that the spirits weren't moving. They were squinting against the bright lights but their attention was riveted to the rescue under way.

Their hands were open, their arms relaxed at their sides. There was no sign of the pickaxes they'd used to bring down the tunnel. It hit Dean then that, if they'd wanted to, they could have easily smashed the two worklights, plunging the tunnel back into darkness. But, this time, there was nothing threatening about their stance or their actions.

"Okay, beam's clear. Grab hold and we lift it on three."

Dean's attention snapped back to Sam. His brother's legs were free and visible, and miners were lined up along the beam pinning him down, ready to lift it.

"One…two…three."

On _three_ they lifted the beam with a collective grunt, carried it off to the side and dumped it on the ground next to the tunnel wall.

Sam was free.

The paramedics moved in and, once again, began assessing their patient.

Dean cast a quick glance up the tunnel—the spirits were still watching, but making no move to attack—then stumbled over to Sam. His brother's face was twisted in pain behind the oxygen mask. Donna was bandaging his thigh where a rapidly blossoming blood stain was soaking through his coveralls while Colin was using the stethoscope to listen to his heart and lungs. "Sammy?"

Sam looked up at Dean. He said nothing but his eyes clearly showed he was in pain.

'Your legs hurt?" Donna asked the question as she kept working.

Sam's only response was a curt nod.

"The blood's rushing back to them now that circulation's restored." Donna secured the bandage. "It should ease off soon, and the fluids we're giving you will help." The paramedic grabbed a pair of scissors and quickly cut through Sam's coveralls and his jeans to examine his legs. "You've got some pretty extensive bruising here but there are no obvious signs of broken bones. X-rays will tell us better, but let's hang on to that bit of good news for now." She smiled, checked her watch, then turned to the miners behind her. "Get the litter. I want him out of here and in the hospital ASAP."

Within minutes, they had Sam transferred to the litter, blankets bundled around him, and monitors and an oxygen tank stowed with him.

Dean retrieved one thing from his duffel, grabbed his gun, then gently but firmly pushed aside one of the six miners about to carry Sam's litter out of the mine.

Donna frowned worriedly. "Dean, you really should—"

"I'm doing this." Dean bent down, wrapped his hand around the metal tubing that formed the rim of the litter, and when the count of three came, lifted his brother off the ground and began walking toward the breach that would get them all to the surface.

He scanned the tunnel; there was no sign of the spirits. He didn't know what their game was but at this point he didn't care. He glanced down at his brother and nodded. "We're going home, Sammy."

**xxxXXXxxx**

Once on the surface, Donna and Colin gave Sam another thorough examination before strapping the litter onto the ATV that would take him off South Mountain and to the ambulance that was waiting on the nearest road.

By the time they were set to go, all the miners and the equipment were clear of the tunnel. Dean looked on in surprise as the miners gathered together just off to their right, dropped to one knee and bent their heads.

Donna smiled softly at Dean's expression. "They're tough S.O.B.'s, every single one of 'em, but, as they like to say, when you spend your day in Hell, it's good to have Heaven on your side. They're just saying thanks for a successful rescue."

Dean nodded slowly, then froze as he caught sight of the three spirit miners standing in the shadows beyond the group saying a prayer. He glanced down at his semi-conscious brother, his expression hardening at everything Sam had been through and would still face as part of his recovery, and fished the small black box from his pocket. "Gus," he shouted when the prayer finished. "All your men accounted for?"

When Gus nodded, Dean turned to Donna. "Gimme thirty seconds. I've got my own way of saying thanks, of making sure no one else gets hurt." He stumbled over to Sam, pulled back the blanket, and wrapped his brother's hand around the box, and his own hand around Sam's. He smiled as Sam looked up at him. "Let's end this, Sammy, for good."

Together, they pressed the first button on the detonator, then the second, then the third. The explosives they'd set earlier blew, the three initial blasts followed by a much larger one as the methane ignited. The ground beneath them rumbled, causing the miners to look up in surprise, and a column of dust and flame blew up through the breach from which they'd recently escaped. But Dean's attention was again locked on the spirits. Acceptance more than surprise was reflected in their strange white eyes as they faded from sight. The bones were burned; the spirits were gone.

Dean tucked Sam's arm back under the blanket, climbed aboard the ATV beside his brother, and held on as the machine roared to life and set off to rendezvous with the waiting ambulance.

**xxxXXXxxx**

"They were just watching us, Sammy. Making no move to attack."

"Didn't have to." Sam shifted, stiff after being bedridden for three days. The first two had been in the ICU as hospital staff monitored his heart and kidneys, the two organs most affected by the aftereffects of crush injuries. When further tests assured them he was stabilized, they'd moved him to his current room, and this was the first real chance the brothers had had to talk without a doctor or nurse hovering nearby. "You proved them wrong."

Dean frowned. "About what?"

"You came back."

Dean raised an eyebrow at that. "Like there was any doubt?"

Sam smiled. "Not from me, but from the spirits, yeah. No one came for them." His smile faded as his mind's eye replayed the confrontation with the ghost miners. "They told me you were dead, then they knocked out the lights…wanted me to know what it was like to be trapped in the dark, to die slowly knowing no one was coming for me. When you showed up…." He shook his head, still not fully believing the sight that had met him when he'd come to. "With a giant rescue party in tow no less…. I think it shocked the hell right out of them—literally ." Sam looked up at Dean and shrugged. "Maybe it reminded them of who miners really are…that what happened to them was the exception, not the rule."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Then tell me this, Mr. Hallmark Moment, why'd they'd let me go? Before I rode in on my white horse, they wanted both of us stuck in that hell for all eternity."

"They didn't let you go. They thought you were dead." Sam winced as he flexed his battered legs to push himself up. "You said yourself that the gas messed you up, that you weren't thinking straight. I think they watched you wander through those tunnels, believing you were as crazy as they were."

Dean looked nauseated at the memory. "Then just to prove their point, I take a header off that rock pile and knock myself out." He grinned at Sam. "Almost made it though."

"But to them you looked dead." Sam groaned as he reached for a cup of water on the stand at the side of the bed. "They couldn't cross the salt line, so they assumed the worst."

Dean crossed to the nightstand, picked up the cup and handed it to his brother.

Sam nodded his thanks. "Then Gus and his crew showed up, hauled you out, and started planning the big rescue. Maybe that's when they figured what I told them wasn't total bull after all."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Talking to ghosts again, Sammy? How many times have-"

"Wasn't like I had a whole lot of options." The laugh lines around Sam's eyes deepened as he grinned behind the cup. "Besides, it worked didn't it?"

"Well, there's that." Dean frowned as his brother squirmed in an attempt to get comfortable, then pressed the button on the bed to raise the head a bit more. "Maybe I should let you talk to Gus. I've still gotta explain why I needed all those lights for your rescue." He started pacing beside Sam's bed. "Not to mention, he was royally pissed we blew up the mine with all his men still on the mountain. Chewed me out but good for that. He sure as hell was in no mood to hear that three ghosts and a few skeletons in the closet were behind all the recent deaths.'"

"Gus is cool. We'll figure out something." Sam dropped his head back onto his pillow. "Maybe taking him a box of Molly's honeybuns would help."

"Couldn't hurt." Dean's expression turned serious as he looked down at Sam.

The bruising down his brother's face and left arm had turned a soft shade of purple. There was further bruising on this chest, but it was his legs, now hidden under the blankets, that had taken the brunt of the damage. Surprisingly, there were no broken bones but muscle and bone bruises made his thighs and shins look like raw liver. Doctors had prescribed short walks around the hospital several times a day to help prevent the muscles from stiffening up, but the pain etched in Sam's face with each step made no secret of how much it hurt.

"What's the latest from your docs? When can we spring you?"

Sam shifted impatiently. "Now's good. I'm sick of this place."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "So if I guard the door, you're ready to hop out bed, get dressed, and hightail it down the corridor?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Well, _hightailing_ might be pushing it, but—"

"Fine. Keep your ass parked where it is 'til I get the full scoop from your doc." Dean shook his head at Sam's pleading expression. "And don't give me the puppy-dog look. I'm immune. You forget whose playing human crutch on those walks they insist you take every few hours? The pace you're moving, it'd take you a day and half to get to the elevators. Something tells me we might get stopped before then."

Sam scowled but offered no real fight. "What about you? Any aftereffects from the gas poisoning?"

Dean shook his head. "Got an all clear this morning. Good as new. We just need to get you pieced back together, then we're putting this town in our rear view mirror for good."

Sam played with the tubing of his IV. "When the spirits knocked the lights out and told me you were dead…." He exhaled audibly. "I thought …I thought that that was it. I wasn't getting out." Sam closed his eyes. "Damn, Dean…. I know exactly why they went crazy. To be stuck in the dark like that, to—" His eyes snapped open when he felt Dean's fingers close around his wrist.

"We got you out, Sam." It was one of those rare occasions when Dean's walls were down. "We were _always_ gonna get you out."

Sam nodded slowly. "But, you know...thanks."

Dean cleared his throat and stepped back. "Okay, before this conversation degenerates into a total chick-flick moment, I am off to smooth things over with Gus. How many do you think it'll take?"

Sam frowned. "How many what?"

Dean scowled. "Pay attention. Honeybuns."

"Now if I didn't know you two were brothers, I'd swear there was something more between you, what with you calling Sam _honeybuns_, and all."

Dean's head snapped toward the doorway to see Miss Gwyn standing there, a mischievous grin on her face.

The librarian offered him a bakery box, tied with string. "Or perhaps these are what you were referring to. Fresh from Molly's kitchen."

Dean took the package and gave Miss Gwyn a mock scowl. "If these are what I think they are, I'm gonna forgive you for what you just implied." He shuddered for effect.

"Yes, well, I apologize for my off-color humor." Miss Gwyn shook her head as she walked into the room. "I was often in trouble as a girl for being saucy. I'm afraid that trait did not improve with age."

Sam smiled tiredly. "Nice to see you again, Miss Gwynn."

The librarian's smile faded. "Oh, you poor thing, look at you. They said half of South Mountain landed on top of you. How you are even breathing is a miracle in itself."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, it wasn't exactly _half _the mountain."

"Sam is still a hero in my book." Miss Gwyn bit back a smile as she saw Dean pull a face at his brother. "You both are. And, as such, I've come to express my gratitude before you disappear into the night, as mysterious heroes of legend usually do."

"Mysterious heroes. I like that." Dean glanced down at the box of pastries. "And thank you for these. Trust me, they'll hit the spot—even if I have to give half of them to Gus to stop him from throwing my ass, um…my butt behind bars for blowing up his mine."

Miss Gwyn gave a soft snort. "First, I think what you two did deserves a bit more than a box of pastries as a thank you. When you're ready to leave, you'll find your hospital bills have been taken care of."

Sam's eyes widened. "Miss Gwyn, we can't let you—"

"Oh, hush." The librarian gently but firmly silenced Sam's objections. "I still have a little pull around here, and this hospital has funds set aside for helping deserving folks, and we'll dip into them gratefully after what you've done." Miss Gwyn turned to Dean. "Second, pay no mind to Gus Cadwalader and his blustering. Believe me, that boy has broken more than few rules in his lifetime. Besides, I think I have something which may get you back in his good graces. You know that the human remains in the mine are the talk of the town, right?"

"What?" Sam's gaze snapped to Dean. "Who saw the remains?"

"Miners trying to rescue your sorry butt." Dean set down the box of pastries on Sam's bed. "Didn't get to fill you in on that part. When the gas knocked me out, Gus sent two teams into the mine to search for you. He called 'em back when I came to, but not before one of the teams saw the bones—one of many reasons I wasn't waiting to put a match to that hellhole soon as you were safe. Last thing we needed was some Joe Do-gooder deciding they needed to haul those remains out of there."

Sam's frown deepened. "So then how—?"

"One miner took some video with his phone, then posted the damn thing online." Dean shook his head. "Like Miss Gwyn said, it's the talk of the town. Everyone wants to know who the skeletons are. Gus is pretty sure they were miners, which is a big part of why he's pissed."

Sam nodded slowly. "He'd wanna know who they were, what happened to them..."

"And that's where I believe this may help." Miss Gwyn reached into her purse and pulled out a battered, leather journal. "My granddaddy left all his books and journals to me in his will. His books I've read many times over, but his journals…." She ran her fingers reverently over the cover. "It hurt too much to read them right after he passed, then, over the years…. Well, it just seemed like a breach of privacy—his and the men and women he counseled. But when talk started up about the bones in the mine, I realized the answers were likely in here."

Miss Gwyn smiled. "Reading through them last night was a real gift, one more I have you two to thank for." She handed the book to Dean.

Dean's eyes widened as he took it from her. "So, what? The spirits' identities are in here?"

Miss Gwyn nodded. "I told you the story of Granddaddy counseling Jeb Clayton, one of the men who hunted down those white-eyed miners. Jeb gave him the names of the three men who were chased into that mine. They're all recorded in there."

Dean opened the journal where a thin, faded ribbon marked the page, and quickly scanned the entry. "There's those names and a whole lot more, all the details of the hunt to track down the white-eye freaks—and how they got that way."

"Let me see." Sam impatiently gestured at the journal. When Dean passed it to him, he read through the opened pages. "It even details the pledge the mayor of the day, Ezekiel Ryder, made the posse take to cover up the whole thing." He glanced up at Miss Gwyn. "You really want us to go public with all this?"

"Absolutely." Miss Gwyn's jaw set stubbornly. "It should never have been covered up in the first place. A town's character is forged from its past, good and ugly. How can we better ourselves if we never learn from our mistakes?" She turned to Dean. "You let Gus know it was Mayor Ryder's kin who launched that posse, set this whole series of events in motion. Trust me, he'll forget all about you asking for extra lights and blowing up that mine."

Dean smiled. "I got the feeling there was some bad blood between Gus and Ryder."

Miss Gwyn snorted. "Those two have been at loggerheads since grade school. Harland always thought too highly of himself and his station for Gus's liking. Gus will be delighted to both take down our esteemed mayor a peg or two and, perhaps, finally give those poor miners some peace."

"Then I suggest you and I go have a chat with Gus." Dean reached over to take the journal back from Sam, then wrapped his arm around Miss Gwyn's shoulders to steer her toward the door.

The librarian shook her head. "You boys took all the risks. I need no share of the credit."

Dean winked at Miss Gwyn. "To be honest, I just figured there's a much better chance Gus won't slug me with you there."

As they stepped into the hall, Sam realized the pastries had been forgotten. "Dean, honeybuns."

A nurse appeared in the doorway to Sam's room at that moment, her face creasing into a grin at the "term of endearment."

"Oh, seriously?" Dean scowled at the nurse's expression as he turned back into the room and snatched up the box. "_This_ is what he was talking about. Pastries." He returned to Miss Gwyn's side, shaking his head as they moved off down the hall. "These things rank right under cheeseburgers and a good Scotch when it comes to awesome but, damn, they need a new name."

**Finis**

**A/N:** _The legend of the 'White-Eyed Freaks' is a true one, out of Tennessee Hollow, Tennessee, as are the circumstances of how the miners came to be trapped. I played with the facts a little bit after that to fit within this story. Written in honor of my late Granddad, James Williams, a Welsh miner. If you have a minute, I'd love to hear from you. 'Til next time, cheers._

**xxxXXXxxx**

**The Miner's Prayer**

By Margie McAlastar

Take a look at these hands, Lord,

They're worn and rough.

My face scarred with coal marks,

My language is tough.

But you know in the heart, Lord,

Lies the soul of a man

Who toils at a living

That few men can stand

There's sulphur and coal dust

And sweat on my brow.

To live like a rich man,

I'd never learn how.

But if you've got a corner

When my work is through,

I'd be mighty proud to live

Neighbors with you.

Each dawn as I rise, Lord,

I know all to well…

I face only one thing:

A pit filled with hell.

To scratch out a living

The best that I can.

But deep in this heart

Lies the soul of a man.

With black covered faces

And hard calloused hands,

We ride the dark tunnels,

Our work to begin.

To labor and toil

As we harvest the coal

We silently pray,

Lord, please harvest our souls

Just a corner in Heaven

When I've grown too old

And my back it won't bend, Lord,

To shovel the coal.

Lift me out of the pit, Lord.

Where the sun never shines,

Cause it gets mighty weary

Down there in the mine.

But I'd rather be me, Lord.

Though no riches I show,

Though tired and weary.

I'm just glad to know

When the Great Seal is broken

The pages will tell

That I've already spent

My time in hell.


End file.
